I spend a lot of time seeking keycaps and keysets, I'm a bit obsessed when it comes to keycaps, I don't enjoy mixing keycaps/blanks and no existing keyset seem to support my weird layout:
http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/db0e32459b60d7b95661538f56279fafI seemed to have a bit of luck ordering custom keycaps from SP, however, I guess recently they bumped up their pricing to extremes, I'm not willing to spend hundreds/thousands on several keycaps (they say a keyset can be manufactured for $750 on their FAQ, to indicate costs are high, however it's probably more like 10k$s now)
Here are my ideas:
1) Dual Extruder 3D PrintingBuy a dual extruder 3d printer for $400, experiment with dual-color ABS keycaps:
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Free-Shipping-Reprap-3D-Printer-Pursa-I3-Double-Heads-Dual-Extruder-Two-color-Printing-High-Resolution/32310783539.html?spm=2114.32010308.4.2.kebMy2Issues: I don't think the resulting keycap would be pleasing, it would likely have a flat surface to be easily printable and would likely require a lot of after-processing, but the bottleneck would probably be the precision of the printer, the legends and texts need to be pleasing
2) 3D Printing + FillingPrint keycaps with a single color, leave the legends empty, fill the legends with a material(?) + post-process (sanding)
Issues: Finding a material to fill the keycap is the obvious challenge, other than that, printing a keycap or getting it printed seems trivial
3) Custom Dye-Subs3a) Hope someone else does this: https://www.etsy.com/shop/DecentKeyboards - I already messaged him, he seems to be the only person that does custom dye-subs (imsto also has a service, but for R4 keycaps)
3b) Buy/Build a machine for the task: Hmm ... even if the machine is found/built, finding a keycap manufacturer that manufactures diverse PBT keys is challenging
4) Multi-color/1+Material 3D Printing ServicesLike:
http://www.shapeways.com/materials/full-color-Plastic - however, in the case of shapeways, the photos/results doesn't seem much promising
At this point, I'm hoping 3a produces some results, I would appreciate any advice, especially along the lines of 3a (The guy even does color on black dye-subs, I think he is an undiscovered gem, he might become the GON of keycaps one day)
This quest also got me pretty close to get back to WASD keycaps, but when I weight in things, it makes more sense to use DSA/SA's with blanks for edge keycaps - I really don't enjoy the glare of the WASD keycaps, other than that, I might just give it a shot at one point