geekhack Projects > Making Stuff Together!
[Aero Keys] Making Keycaps
Raenbo:
CURRENT PROJECT: Color testing & Topre Stuff
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Original Post:
Hello! Over this summer break, my cousin and I decided to try out crafting our own keys. He wanted to make Topre blanks, and I was interested in making artisans. But before we fully commit to the project, we had to have some ideas. So I started sculpting...
Just the ideas I threw out to see if I could actually make a good design.
The third and fourth sculpts were what we figured we wanted to make caps of. The MechaShark and the Rose. Once we decided we were ready, we had to gather supplies and materials for resin casting and mold making. It wasn't cheap, but we got some Oomoo 30 for the silicone mold and Alumilte Water Clear for the resin. Also a paint tank that we converted into a pressure pot. Thankfully my dad already had an air compressor in the garage. I think our total cost came to about $300 for everything, including tools and colorants.
So, we made our molds of the caps following many guides and how-to videos. We wanted to do this right, and minimize wasting materials.
I swear we took more pictures... We wanted to document our trials but I think we got too excited during the process and forgot to take lots of pics.
Anyways, our molds came out pretty good. Once we tested the molds, we decided to dive right in to coloring the resin and curing it under pressure. Our first cast went a little like this...
I'd like to consider them a success. They can use some work, as the stem is loose for the rose, and sometimes the Topre cap gets stuck to the keyboard. We definitely need to refine our methods and make better molds. But so far, everything is going great with our caps. In the meantime, we are experimenting with a variety of colorants. Waiting is the hardest part, as it takes hours for the Alumilite to fully cure.
Eventually, we'd like to release our caps into the wild world. We came up with calling ourselves "Aero Key." Just a play on words, and our logo is gonna look something like this wing
Also sorry if the format of this post is weird. First time making a topic here. Hello everyone!
Marshal:
Hello all, here for an update on our progress with cap making! Currently our artisans are only MX and our Blanks are only Topre but we're working towards having both available. Here is what we have so far and we'd like as much feedback as possible, hoping to get some support from others. Thanks a lot :D
Edit: Have to apologize about all the photos on this page and for the awfully dusty laptop that I took the photos on.
romevi:
And here I post!
I really like the rose and shark ones, but I'm not a fan of the super translucent materials in the finished caps. Makes them harder to see the details.
Would really like to see some opaque versions. :thumb:
Raenbo:
--- Quote from: romevi on Tue, 19 July 2016, 12:43:28 ---And here I post!
I really like the rose and shark ones, but I'm not a fan of the super translucent materials in the finished caps. Makes them harder to see the details.
Would really like to see some opaque versions. :thumb:
--- End quote ---
Yeah we're working on getting more variations of color. Right now, our dyes only come out translucent. We're looking into getting white pigment to make opaque colors. Thanks for your feedback :)
dannrawr:
--- Quote from: romevi on Tue, 19 July 2016, 12:43:28 ---And here I post!
I really like the rose and shark ones, but I'm not a fan of the super translucent materials in the finished caps. Makes them harder to see the details.
Would really like to see some opaque versions. :thumb:
--- End quote ---
yeah cant see details on them mechashark
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