Hello everyone, I understand the concerns and am happy to touch upon it and give an update.
There is a lot of payment hurdles to get through with a GB of this size, one of them being the Chinese government's restriction on currency conversion, which lead to a delay in payment from our Chinese distributor that did not arrive until a week after Chinese New Years.
For a smaller GB, I can imagine that it would be possible for the GB runners to fund it or have it ordered and produced early. Frankly, I am not familiar with the other Cherry logo GB, and if they had the keycaps produced ahead of time or if GMK is a lot more efficient at making them. Either way, I am glad to hear that they were able to get it quickly.
Another factor that has taken longer than I had originally planned was that we have been working with GMK to specify the finer details on production and quality of the keycaps.
As a result, GMK SKIDATA+ will be using GMK's updated and reformulated plastic.
To elaborate a bit on the process, GMK did some intensive testing and optimization during the last 2-3 weeks.
Besides creating some new colors, there will be improved formulas for existing colors.
Most importantly, GMK also managed to further improve the V2 color which now features better material properties as well as a more saturated color. The new color is a tad more saturated and is very close to the original color used for the first Skidata keys.
What this means is that GMK SKIDATA+ will be made to be as good as the original Skidata, in terms of the V2 orange legends having better saturation and material property (so less light bleed and should look great).
Our vision has always been to create to a keyset that would satisfy our enthusiast's desire for the very best, in terms of material properties, layout compatibility and the such, so a major focus of the GB was to focus on making sure that we are indeed getting the keyset made to our demanding specifications. It's a subtle change to the materials, but I'm hopeful that people are happy to hear this, and will find it to be the very best GMK has to offer.
Regarding the order, we will have a definite update by next week from GMK as promised, and I have been working on the "Free Gift" keycaps that have actually been a bit difficult to create.
Hopefully I will also have a response regarding the "Free Gift" keycaps and will know if I am able to put them into production as well, as there is a lot of authorization required to use certain tooling.
I just wanted to give a detailed response so hopefully it is understood that we have been constantly working on the GB.
This is my first GB, and it has been a humbling and great learning experience. I also want to thank everyone again for your patience.
I sincerely apologize for the unexpected delays, and will work 100% full speed ahead to get these produced, you have my word on it.
If this goes well, we will be able to run a faster GB next time, while keeping our specifications and quality at the highest standards.
Another side note, just a teaser for the raffle that will be conducted later on for the Bingecaps.
Cheers,
K
