If this ends up being what happens, can we go back to the darker samples they had?
If I remember correctly the really dark ones were too soft for normal production so I don't think we will be getting those. Someone correct me if I am wrong.
Part of the problem is that the company printing on the keycaps is different from the one producing the caps. PLUM is pressing plastic pellets into molds to make the keys. Imsto is using a dyesub printer to put letters on the keys.
PLUM has created 3 sample batches:
Batch 1 was too soft, didn't even get shipped to Imsto. They changed plastic suppliers to fix the problems and that lead to...
Batch 2, which was of acceptable firmness, but Imsto determined they were too dark to accept dyesub.
Batch 3 is made of good plastic and it's a little lighter in color. Right now it's w/ Imsto where he will determine if it can accept dyesub legends.
If batch 3 is still too dark: Ivan is not sure what the next step is.
One options is to ship the blanks people who ordered blanks and give people who ordered printed keys refunds. This is expensive in the short term because the order from plum is for {X} sets, whereas only {Y} of those are for people who want blanks. So even though people only want {Y} keysets, PLUM has already been paid to produce {X} sets. Ivan would have to issue refunds to people who don't want to take blank keys instead of printed keys, and would then be stuck with dozens of blank black keycap sets that he doesn't want. I'm sure that they would eventually get sold off, but that's just a huge headache to deal with, and a hit to his pocket book at Christmas time.
Another option is to delay production for batch 4. There's no guarantee that batch 4 would be perfect, and it would probably be another 3-6 months of waiting before we know if they can be printed, and 3-6 more months to go through the printing and shipping process. This means more pitchforks and people *****ing, but it might be a smaller headache to deal with that than to issue refunds.
If batch 3 is perfect then PLUM will go into full production mode and complete the sets, ship them to Imsto, and they'll be printed on, shipped to Ivan and distributed to everyone. This process will take a minimum of 3 months to complete, and could take even longer.
So odds are very low that we'll end up with blank keys from batch 2, even if batch 3 is too dark to be printed and Ivan decides to go with the refund option.
