Family Fun: Coloring FKBN87M/NPEK Keys

[vhaarr]

Greetings all!

Some forewords
I've only been a member of this forum for a few days now, but I've been reading it up and down the last few weeks. Thank you all for an excellent forum and a source of inspiration.

The reason? I was looking for christmas presents for my 2 younger brothers (they are 17 and 19, and very, very active gamers and social networkers, like all teens their age).

Christmas presents are hard.

And I found it; 2x Majestouch Tenkeyless Tactile Touch "Otaku" (FKBN87M/NPEK).

I placed the order with elitekeyboards.com yesterday, and hopefully they will arrive before christmas!

I've also ordered 1 set of replacement keys (FKB104/87) just to have something extra to play and experiment with.

As a sidenote, reading this forum has convinced me to buy a HHKBPro2, and I'm expecting it shortly - just a little christmas present for myself, hehe I'm a long time Linux user and programmer, so I should've done this a long time ago!

My father is a world-known car painter (he has been the judge at the European Championship in car painting, isn't that awesome?), and my mother is a good fuller (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulling), where she obviously adds different dye colors to get different colored items (here's just an example I pulled from google images; http://home.online.no/~abbe/diverse/100_1851.JPG).

So, here's the thing
I want to turn these keyboard gifts into a family activity for christmas. Hopefully we can spend a day or two getting the keys "just right", and at the same time get my brothers each a wonderful, customized keyboard.

I have not told my parents anything about this planned activity yet, but I'm sure they will be thrilled!

My two younger brothers will want to color their keys differently, and I'm asking for your help in how we should proceed.

I've been reading the threads here about rit-dying keys and plasti dipping them, etc. I've been reading them both twice.

But I still have no idea how to proceed with this!

What I need
Clear instructions on how to color these Filco keys. Either with dying them or by painting them (spray, dip, whatever), or both!

What kind of dye, paint, or stuff that we should use (remember, I don't want my parents to know about this beforehand, so I can't ask them!).

What you will get
I will take digital pictures of every step this christmas, and I'll post a detailed report here on what my family thought of the whole thing and detailed pictures of the finalized keyboards.

Since my parents know quite a bit about the subject as well, I'm sure they will have ideas and suggestions of their own about how to proceed. Any insight they provide will be relayed and explained in detail here.

I'm sure that my father has ideas as to where we can obtain any dye or paint that we will use for this project in Norway, so I'll post that as well here for any europeans that might need help on where to order such things.

Thanks up front for any help I recieve with this project, and I hope that the resulting article I write about the project will please everyone and serve as a source of inspiration for anyone who is struggling with their christmas presents for next year.

As a foot note, I visited the #geekhack IRC channel on freenode (I'm "vhaarr" there as well) to try and get help on this, but there's noone there.
I'm available through several means; IRC, E-mail, MSN, phone, forum privmsg, and I'll keep two eyes on this thread every day!

[AndrewZorn]

im no expert, but i dont think dying black keys is going to work very well.  and paint will eventually rub off.

the future hhkb, on the other hand...

[vhaarr]

So I need to buy some blank keys somewhere?

I did some searching and the only thing I could find was http://forums.vr-zone.com/niceday-virtual-service-center/491643-interests-check-filco-colour-keycaps.html, which seems to be a bunch of guys in Singapore going to order in pre-colored keys.

Actually I guess the above post could be rather interesting to some people on this forum

Other than that I found that I could buy some G81-7000HPBUS-2 and use those keys but that sounds rather backwards.

Where can I buy blank keys for the Filco Majestouch?

[majestouch]

Jelly swiped that avatar from me! It's designed to compliment my signature and moniker:)

[vhaarr]

So that leaves you with painting or getting some different keys.
Would be better to look for cheap IBM Model Ms and experiment with those.

So if we paint them and use stronger colors, it doesn't matter that much if they're black, does it?

Are you saying it would be better to experiment with some cheap IBM Model Ms because
a) they feel/use the same key system as these keyboards
b) the keys on IBM Model M fits Filco boards
?

[vhaarr]

I looked around a bit and it seems this guy managed to paint black plastic using 3 layers; http://airsoftdigest.com/airsoft_digest/2009/01/workshop-how-to-paint-black-plastic-to-look-like-wood.html

He used http://www.krylon.com/

I think I'll bring my dad in on this project and see if he has any ideas.

[ch_123]

my mother is a good fuller

I hope she doesn't have to do what Roman fullers used to do!

(In case anyone is unfamiliar with their Roman history, fullers in Rome used to clean the cloth using urine collected from public toilets. They then used to dry the cloth over a sulphur fire, ironically this was to get rid of the smell of the urine)

[vhaarr]

I hope she doesn't have to do what Roman fullers used to do!

Haha, no She uses hot water and soft soap and sometimes uses the washing machine. To be honest I've no idea how it works but I have joined her in making one pair of loafers some years ago (I live 4 hours drive from my parents so I don't exactly get to join in on their activities that often - which is another reason why I wanted to find some activity for christmas where everyone could enjoy it, and I think making custom colored keyboards fits perfectly).

[vhaarr]

I just called my dad and informed him of the project, and he instantly said

"It's no problem, I'll just bring the keys in to work and give them a layer of coating and spray paint them with my car painting tools, it'll stick on the keys for years without losing quality."

I mean, he said that like the second I finished telling him about the project. And yes I said the keys were black.

His only concern was that the lettering on the keys would disappear I told him my brothers were good typists and that it wasn't a problem

This seems like it could be easier than I thought.

I'm going to e-mail him some product links and stuff on this forum so he can review it a bit closer and we can produce a detailed plan of attack for this project. I'll report back when we have more!

[Hakhu]

What about the texture of the keys after painting them? Wouldn't it be real smooth and shiny? That wouldn't work for me.

[vhaarr]

Yeah that's a concern I'm well aware of. I'll be discussing it in detail with my dad some time next week and we'll see what we come up with.

[AndrewZorn]

smooth keys might be neat, id be more concerned about the paint wearing away

[Hakhu]

It's art.   Art is never easy.

Anyway, texture is easy to fix.

Show Image

Let the guy do his thing.  You have to remember his dad is a pro.   Always cracks me up when people in forums pretend they know better than people that make money from what they do  - it IS a different level.

Just for the record: I never tried to pretend I know better!

It's just, that his dad is a pro with paint, but not with keyboards. He might not even consider the changing texture to be an issue.
I just wanted to remind vhaarr that it is (he obviously thought of that himself already) so they could take that into consideration. I'm not doubting his dad ability to solve this issue as well once he knows it is indeed an issue.

But it was my pleasure cracking you up.

[vhaarr]

I just wanted to remind vhaarr that it is (he obviously thought of that himself already) so they could take that into consideration. I'm not doubting his dad ability to solve this issue as well once he knows it is indeed an issue.

Yes, thank you - just because I thought of that issue already doesn't mean I have thought of _everything_, so anything you can think of would be most welcome.

[itlnstln]

Just spray the keys with truck bed liner.  That would be a durable finish that will NEVER get shiny.

[AndrewZorn]

i have thought about that, actually

[itlnstln]

You're not the only one.

[itlnstln]

It's sort of heavy for paint, too, so it might change the keyfeel too much. That, and it's thick, so there might even be some spacing issues as well.

[itlnstln]

I'm lazy, too.  I wouldn't spend the time painting my keycaps, anyway.

[itlnstln]

What family?

[itlnstln]

OK.  That made me LOL at work.  You win.

[vhaarr]

Alright FINALLY the shipment from elitekeyboards is on its way from the capitol here in Norway; they have held it for a week pending some toll crap, and there was nothing I could do about it

I should have it in my hands by tuesday or wednesday, and then I will try to take some pictures of it and post up here just for fun

Obviously no details of the actual paint job will be produced until I get them home and to my dads work place, where I will carefully document as much as possible of the process!

[microsoft windows]

Easy solution to the lettered key problem.

Show Image

That thing would give me a heart attack!

[vhaarr]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vhaarr/sets/72157622921208869/

First time I've made a flickr set, I figured that would probably be the easiest way to go about this

So, some basic information;

First we cleaned all the keys with alcohol and let them dry out.

Then we applied one layer of paint primer with a spray gun. This was supposed to eat into the plastic slightly so that the paint would later stick to it.

While this was drying we mixed up the colors we were going to use (dark green, light green, dark blue and light blue).

When the paint sticker was dry (5 minutes), we sprayed one base color (the dark one) on a whole set of keys and let that dry (10 minutes), then we sprayed another coat of dark on all the keys (you could see that after one coating the edges of the top of the keys were still black through the paint, sadly I did not take a picture of this). Before the 2nd coating of dark color had been allowed to set, we went around the table at an angle and sprayed with the light color to create a gradient effect.

After the paint had dried (15 minutes at 80 degrees celsius), we removed the keys from the spraying room and let them dry in normal household temperature for another few hours.

If we had not done this last step of drying AND pressed down hard on the keys (which had to be done, to attach them to the keyboards), we would've left imprints on them. Even with plastic gloves, they would've gotten noticable markings.

After letting them dry up for a few hours we removed them from the tape holding them in place on the tables and inserted them on the keyboards.

Voila!

If anyone has any questions, I will be more than happy to answer anything regarding this project.

I have deliberately left out a lot of details about the paint thinner, color combinations or codes, spray methods, etc, because all of this was done in a professional workshop and none of you will have the utilities necessary to repeat the project (and I would have to ask my dad for much of this, I don't want to bother him .

And if you do go to your local car painter (they could perform this kind of thing easily in just 1 hours work if you don't count the time needed to dry), they will know exactly what to do anyway

EDIT: Attached one of the photos from the flickr stream in case you guys don't want to go there. The photo is of the finished products. For detailed photos of the whole process please visit the flickr URL above.