Keycap Lettering

[tosu]

Hello all,

I'm new here and have had a little look around with regards to lettering. I'm wondering if you can give me some advice/point me in the right direction. I have a set of blank white keycaps that I want to first dye then add lettering to using my own font. I can't seem to find many options for lettering at all and wanted to know what your advice may be. I am currently in my last year at uni but due to the shut down might not be able to have access to the laser cutter to engrave the keycaps. I'm thinking of a few options but predominantly looking at going for a forest green keycaps and base with white lettering (most likely side-mounted) with a few custom icons for the windows logo etc. I've attached an image of the colour and type of font wanting to be used, I appreciate they are not side-mounted, Futura PT Light 6/8/10pt, although I will concede to using bold.

Are there any options below/what would you suggest is the best?

-Have any of you had success with dry rub lettering?
-Using a craft cutter to cut vinyl and use that
-Creating a negative and spray painting and then peeling the lettering off

Cheers!

tosu

[rinkaan]

rub on lettering are aint bad... but if u are really ambitious you can consider using a dremel to cut out the fonts, then fill it with enamel paint.

[Leslieann]

I would avoid the Dremel, it's way too uncontrollable for this unless you have a LOT of practice. It's doable with jewelers tools but I've done a lot with Dremels and despite that there's no way I could make that work without destroyed fingers and key caps. It;s too bulky and hared to control with that sort of precision, I'm sure someone could, but I'm betting they spent a long time getting there.

A Dab of clear nail polish will make all of these last longer, side or top printed, this is what they often do with pad printed legends.

If you do manage to carve in the letters, people have had good luck backfilling with liquid paper.

I would say you could get some metal punches, heat them and use that to emboss, you could even get a wood burning kit (ungainly but better than a Dremel), problem is, you can get a pretty darn nice set of already marked thick PBT caps for the same price or less. Granted, they wouldn't be that color combo, but still.

[Nixon]

DIY Dye sub Keycaps are easy enough to do.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/6yp401/been_experimenting_with_diy_dye_sub_keycaps/

[Findecanor]

I've heard about people using a laser cutter/engraver to burn designs. That is how many mainstream keycaps are manufactured. You would have to tune the settings carefully though, maybe do trial and error before you get it right.
Not all makerspaces allow all plastic materials because of how good the ventilation in their laser-cutters are: smoke is harmful to laser-cutter mirrors.

One variation is to paint or dye the keycaps and laser-etch off the paint revealing the plastic underneath. Keycaps for backlit keyboards are often made that way. But I dunno what kind of paint would be suitable ...

If you do use dry-rub or waterslide decals, you could put them on the front of the keys where they won't rub off so easily.

[dgneo]

Could try a DIY dye sub: https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/6egoot/idea23_how_to_dye_sub_your_own_caps/?utm_source=amp&utm_medium=&utm_content=post_body

[tosu]

The only problem with these dye printing methods is having the printer! I'm tempted to maybe see if a craft cutter would be able to have a good go at these.

Cheers for the advice

[Leslieann]

Purpose built dysub printers are expensive.
You can convert quite a few common inkjets to do it for cheap, unfortunately most common printers will not work due to the cartridge drm or will need REALLY expensive OEM carts.

Where it gets expensive is the heat press. Yes, I know people do it with an iron and while it's doable you need to keep in mind that you're working very close to the melting point of a keycap and one mistake and it will either not transfer fully (you typically only get one shot) or you can damage the cap. An iron is fine if you have a spare set to play around with but I wouldn't recommend it for anything more than that. Good heat presses are expensive to buy and ship but they will make or break the entire process.