Best keycaps for heavy use?

[skyride]

Hey guys.

I bought a Filco Majestouch 104 with MX Blue's about a month ago. Absolutely love the keyboard, don't regret it at all. However I'm not too happy with the keycaps. I'm quite an avid gamer, and a lot of the keys are already starting to become shiny, and feel dirty (I've cleaned them, little difference).

I've did a little bit of reading on the various key cap types, and my understanding is that the matte type keys on filco keyboards naturally just wear very quickly, so I'm not too sure what to go with instead. My only real preference is that I would rather not have blanks. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Cheers, Adam

[itlnstln]

I would go with the KBC/Ducky PBT engraved caps.  The PBT material is very durable and the engraving certainly isn't going to wear away.  All caps will go shiny at some point, but the PBT caps will retain their finish for much longer than the ABS caps Filco uses.

[skyride]

Ah awesome. That was sort of the impression I'd got.

Do you have any suggestion as to where I could get them from? Nothing in the Group Buy section immediately jumps out at me (aesthetically). I saw WASDKeyboards suggested in another thread, they've only got blanks on their website bit I fired off an email asking if they have printed sets. Anywhere else I should check?

[itlnstln]

Tankguys.com and E-Sports Gaming (see the Vendor Forum).  WASD uses ABS like Filco, so that may not fit your needs.

[RiGS]

Eventually the PBT plastic becomes shiny and oily as well, at that point it will be inferior to ABS. ABS has a much better chalky grippy texture, while a shiny PBT key is practically useless.
I would say try to harvest yourself the thick Cherry DS keys. Also the lower height profile of cherry keys works much better with Cherry mx switches.
Those are the only keycaps ever worth considering.

[skyride]

Eventually the PBT plastic becomes shiny and oily as well, at that point it will be inferior to ABS.

How much more wear do they take though? I mean this keyboard is literally a month old tomorow, and already half the main key section is starting to get shiny. I'm looking on ebay right now, and I can see ABS 37 set's for like ~£15, vs ~£25 for PBT 37's from the group section here. I go through about 1 keyboard a year (purely through use), before I finally took the dive to buy a mechanical thinking it'd last a lot longer.

Also **** the bed, ripster has spent some serious amount of time writing up about keyboards. Kudos to you sir.