Q: on printed Filco keycaps - clearcoat?

[Surly73]

I've had my Filco tenkeyless w/ Browns for less than a week.  I was just looking closely at the keycaps and noticed something.  What I noticed was that there does not seem to be a blob of protective coating over the key printing.  You can feel the raised letters clearly with your fingers (the shift key drew my attention to it) and it's unclear if there's a whole-key coating in place since the lettering can be felt so easily and distinctly.

In general all white-on-black printed caps I've ever seen have the clear blobs over top to prevent wear to the lettering itself.  I also recall some recent post about rapid wear of Filco caps and someone suggested a possible cap defect and missing coating.

What's definitive on this?  My board is the only Filco I've seen firsthand that I could inspect this closely.  Are all of them like this or should there be a clearcoat over the printing?

I got it from PCHome, I suspect I wouldn't bother sending it back for this if it was a defect but I'd still like to know...  If a defect, I'd hope that maybe someone (like Filco) could just ship me replacement caps.

[clickclack]

Hi Surly73,

There is nothing from what I can tell thats defective about your keys so not to worry there. There are numerous printing methods on keycaps. The "blob" that you describe (decal look) can be from a couple of different printing methods. The coating that people are talking about regarding some Filco keys the the "entire" key. Filco does not just coat the legend, they coat the whole surface of the key. The wear that is sometimes remarked upon regarding Filco keys usually has to do with the key top surface getting shiny or leaving a white-ish discolored wear pattern (as the coating rubs off). The legends themselves are quite durable and "tend" not to wear easily.

If you flip one of your keycaps over and you see what look like water spots underneath, then your keys entire top surface is likely coated.

So breathe deep and relax, you are good to go.

=)

Edit: Whoops, I was too slow, I figured Rip would beat me to it. =P

[Surly73]

See the All About Keys wiki.

Invisible coating is invisible except when it is not.

I've seen that, and the coating wasn't immediately apparent.   The actually lettering edges are also very easy to feel - it did not feel like there was any significant coating.  I'll pull another key and inspect the underside in very bright light and see if it's conclusive.

[Surly73]

OK, I'm bumping my thread....

I'm reading more and more accounts in other forums from fairly recent Filco purchasers observing rapid key printing wear (i.e. one month and less).  I purchased mine from that most recent batch that PCHome had which sold out in a day or something.  Some other people are specifically referring to the Amazon KBC store, I think, which is also a pretty recent development.

ANY sign of this within the GH community?  I haven't been collecting links yet but it's got me wondering.  I did pull a keycap and look underneath.  If I used a lot of wishful thinking I may have seen a single one of those "water spot" like marks indicating clear coat overspray.  As I mentioned, I can very clearly feel the sharp edges of the lettering on the SHIFT key, among others.

Now, I did order this from PCHome so I guess I'm unlike to send it back even if there is a defect.  But I might be able to ask PCHome or Filco for a set of replacement keycaps to be sent to me (much cheaper) if there is a batch of defects out there.  Lukcily nothing else appears to be amiss with my PCHome-sourced board.  I'm not panicked, we should all be interested if there's some kind of batch defect...

[Surly73]

I've been shining up boards for 20 years - doesn't bother me until it gets really bad.

On the other hand, I haven't heard a complaint of lettering rubbing off in less than a month until the last month when I started seeing quite a few threads (elsewhere) about it.  That's what caused my concern.