Hey guys,
I'm Coz (or Toby) and I bought my first Mechanical Keyboard for myself over Christmas (DS5) then pretty quickly fell in love with Mechs and the whole community.
I loved taking something so simple and everyday and making it top quality, then from that I fell into the world of artisans and keycap sets and realised I loved the possibility of turning a board into a canvas even more.
In my day job I'm a picture framer, I make hand made frames, and do a lot of gilding. We'd been working on a massive frame for Perth Council and had a bunch of silicone sitting around so decided to try my hand at artisan making. I've been surrounded by art my whole life yet never really felt the urge to make any myself, but once I made my first cap and could combine my job, interest in art and my new passion for keyboards, I was hooked.
My first cap, the No Esc Key I was pretty happy with, I liked the concept and, whilst never having sculpted before, was reasonably happy with the sculpt. I came across a few problems pretty quickly, mostly the size, I'd sculpted it with apoxy resin onto an esc key, and well, it was BIG, some of my later casts got caught on my DS5's top plate. Not fun. This I found was mostly because of my moulds slipping when the resin was in them and the walls being slightly thicker on one side, but yeah, my sculpt greatly exacerbated this. But all in all I was pretty happy with my first sculpt, having never sculpted before and never really made anything, but frames, with my hands.
My second cap was a bucket head. This cap came around with me just sitting around fooling about with some apoxy sculpt and seeing where it would take me. I wanted to make a character but my limited sculpting skills meant I wanted to keep it relatively simple. So I found myself making a Ned Kelly cap, I'm Australian, and he's an Aussie Icon, so thought, why not? Just the Helmet was pretty boring (Although I do want to revisit a Ned Kelkey) so I just started adding to it, and the bucket head was born. My first batch were cast without a pressure pot, and whilst I was happy with how they came out I really feel my second, pressure cast, batch are pretty cool, I love it how the chin spike sits between the keys.
Bucket Head pre-pressure
Bucket Head pressurized (sorry for potato quality)
My third, and probably my favorite cap of my first batch, was the volkeyno. I was talking to my mate at work and thought a volcano key would be great, I could play with the casting and keep the sculpt really simple but effective. I felt it would be the perfect key for where I was at that moment. Brainflushed gave me the idea to make it snow capped, and I made a few snow capped volkeynoes and was in love. I'm pretty funny about my sculpts, I don't really like having them on my board as I am super negative on anything I create, but I had a green snow capped sitting on my Ducky for ages, and loved it.
So yeah then with a bunch of blanks I set out to hold my first sale. I read a HEAP of threads both on making keycaps and general casting and set about failing miserably for a while. But, my occasional successes kept me going and I worked towards pooling enough successful caps to put on my first sale. Which I did, on reddit, I know.. but I do rather like the community over there and I felt I was no where near good enough to post here yet, to be honest I still don't think I am there yet, but I'm creeping closer, I hope!
Anyway I'm getting ahead of myself, this is about the making, not the selling, so yeah I went about making my silicone moulds. I used a 24 hr setting silicone, it's M4503/T35 from Barnes for all you artisans out there, if you're curious, I love this silicone. I didn't, and still don't, have a vacuum chamber but the slow drying time gives all the bubbles time to move to the top, I've had bubble free silicone from day one, that's been my one area I haven't failed in. One word of warning though, this silicone does not like High PSI, it pitts pretty easy. Oh yeah and another thing, I originally got the wrong resin for my silicone and it stayed tacky for ages, so yeah if you're looking at doing this I'd suggest talking to some one in the know and getting the right silicone/resin combo. Anyway, I made my moulds as all the guides said, with channels and put them together then poured in, and failed, and failed, and failed. I kind of like problem solving, so went about editing the guides to a way that works for me.
So, this is how I make my caps, a word of warning, this works for me, but I do things strangely and I'd recommend following other guides first. Anyway I make my moulds as others do, with two halves, a top and bottom, but I don't put channels in, and I put guide slot in the sides so that they can fit together in the right position. The guy at my plastic shop thought I was mad with no channels, but it works for me. Then I pour my first pour, or only, or whatever, into the cap side of the mould, then I pour into the stem and use a toothpick to get rid of any bubbles, give it a minute, so it doesn't run out of the stem then push the two halves together. So I don't actually pour into the whole mould, I do a two part pour, strange I know, but I get a lot less failures this way. One thing I learnt quick though was don't push them together too hard or when the silicone springs back it'll suck in air and you'll get bubbles.
My strange mould:
I use Smooth-On 402 crystal clear resin, and I really like it, I sometimes tint it with opaque white or black to get solid colours, though sometimes with odd results.
Anyway, that's a bit of an essay, since doing these three caps I've made more designs, and refined one, I've also got a pressure pot from the proceeds of my first sale.
I'll be more than happy to share my new designs here as well, just don't want to bore everyone with my first post.
Some pics:
Hope something was of interest and I'd be more than happy to answer any questions anyone has. Heck even if they are questions about picture framing
Also I'm terrible at forums, I am pretty sure this is formatted wrong, sorry!
Cheers guys
Coz