Here is an example of how easy it is to create more keys with different labels:
(extra points to whoever can read what it says)

Is this a pic or a rendered image?

Djuzuh wrote:Is this a pic or a rendered image?

Just a render

Edit: I tried making it a bit sparkly as seen here:

although it came out a bit lighter and more bluish than in real life. The lighting during that real pic is somewhat warm which makes it more yellow than irl.

The rendered image looks like a real pic. It even has multiple sources of lights and all.. Is there even one cap you made from one of your models?

You said in one of the posts that you were considering which type of finish to offer. What type of finishes are there?

Very nice...
ASDFGHJKLÖÄA
WHATEVRRRRW

Reminds me of these.

Limmy wrote:The rendered image looks like a real pic. It even has multiple sources of lights and all.. Is there even one cap you made from one of your models?

You said in one of the posts that you were considering which type of finish to offer. What type of finishes are there?

I made a post with printed keys a couple of posts up. The sparkly ones are easy as those are straight from the machine. The others require work and I don't know about those.

The company below could electropolish and anodize them for instance. They seem to offer free samples too, so I may send a couple there to try. This is way easier if we do several keys so that no one has to sand them.
http://www.ableelectropolishing.com/tit ... dizing.htm
http://www.ableelectropolishing.com/titanium-finishing

lysol wrote:Very nice...
ASDFGHJKLÖÄA
WHATEVRRRRW

you didn't see it was a render, did you?

webwit wrote:Reminds me of these.

Where are those from?

Edit: Those look nice. Aluminum?

Scarface alu series.

Sure I saw that it was not real keycap, but it is still nice looking even if CG. Scarface look and quality is what to aim for surely.

The thing with aluminum is that it is soo much easier to machine, sand or polish because it is soft, but we'll see what happens. They are not that far from the ruff sparkly one of those.

Ah.. I see the sample now. It seems the surface is very rough and finishing is indeed necessary. I would think it would be possible to sand plain and easy parts like a space bar but anything that has groves is going to be hard to polish by hand.

I wonder if the finishing process is going to push up the prices high to the point there is very little demand. For instance, the SC2 titanium cap was $50 a piece. (pics here photos-videos-f8/titanium-sc-keys-t3010.html )

Aluminum caps are nice, but the problem with them is that they are prone to wear. I hear titanium are far better in that sense; both mechanically and chemically (mechanically stronger and less reactive to chemicals and etc)

Limmy wrote:Aluminum caps are nice, but the problem with them is that they are prone to wear. I hear titanium are far better in that sense; both mechanically and chemically (mechanically stronger and less reactive to chemicals and etc)

Yeah, titanium is really durable, and this happens to be a very strong alloy too. Advantage is that it will not wear, but will obviously be harder to polish. Electropolishing would be nice and cheap but only if in larger batches.

The really ruff top part can be fixed so that it comes out correct. The ones I labeled sanded weren't sanded much, and just with some sandpaper I had laying around. Might be easier with some sandpaper made for this. Still, it is something that I would rather avoid. Price for 'straight from machine finish' is in the single digits per key.

Single digit price per key without finish is very attractive to me. If the key has to be large like a space bar, is the price 6 times the single key?

I think large keys with less groves can be sanded by hand. Space bar for instance would be the easiest since there is no inward grooves like other keys.

I think it would be very hard to hand sand parts with groves because to sand those parts you would need grooved surface to put the sand paper on(like a round stick or a finger) and it would be hard to put even pressure.

webwit wrote:Scarface alu series.

They still make me smile everyday

One of my friends has a small electropolisher

The_Beast wrote:One of my friends has a small electropolisher

In the US? It is hard to find companies that can electropolish or anodize titanium since it is so resistant, as previously mentioned. I know of several companies that only deal in stainless and aluminium. If he thinks he could do it, we might set up a test.

damorgue wrote:

The_Beast wrote:One of my friends has a small electropolisher

In the US? It is hard to find companies that can electropolish or anodize titanium since it is so resistant, as previously mentioned. I know of several companies that only deal in stainless and aluminium. If he thinks he could do it, we might set up a test.

My bad, after looking online for a bit I think it was an ultra sonic cleaner.


How hard is it to polish titanium vs aluminum? I've polished aluminum before, it wasn't too hard and I was doing it mostly by hand

webwit wrote:Scarface alu series.

How much does or did those ones cost?

6,000 KRW per each key
5,000 KRW per each key if purchased as a set of 34 or 47
4,000 KRW per each key if purchased as a set of 72 or 86

It is about 1150 KRW = 1 USD, so roughly $5 per cap.

The Scarface metal keys were die casted not CNCed(there was later CNC version and they were much more expensive than the one seen above). They are no longer produced at the moment as far as I know. I believe SF still has the mold though. However, I heard rumors that he had hard time selling the left overs.

Just made some more keys:

Did you actually make them or just design them?

i3oilermaker wrote:Did you actually make them or just design them?

Just design them. And i have been starting on a case for the Phantom, because I want to use the keys in between the arrow cluster and the Del, End and Page-cluster. There is a normal case in the image though.

How can titanium alloy be pure? It's an alloy!

Half-Saint wrote:How can titanium alloy be pure? It's an alloy!

Very tight specifications on the alloy, you don't want oxygen or any other contaminants in it.
The alloy is quite strong and light, so there won't be any issues of not lasting as some people mentioned that the aluminum caps wear a bit.

I just looked at the caps of Topre, and since they are of the sliding kind, they will probably not be suitable either.
IBM (2 piece type) and MX caps are the ones which are possible to make without a lot of effort.

Someone should make a two piece type for Topre, a single mold for all the keys which you can the put covers on, much like some IBM boards.

Cherry's engineers are deliberately trying to screw with me. I made the square stem design I made the same size as the cylinder that is normally used. That is, the diameter of the cylinder was used as the width of the square stem. One should expect it to fit into the hole then, yes?

No!


See that little notch in the housing above the stem in this picture. It allows for a cylindrical fitting of a cap to pass into the hole even though the fitting is larger than the stem. If you ask me, it looks like the entire key was designed and ready when they realized, oh crap, there is too little space for the stem attachment of the cap and then they added that small feature afterwards.

Ni biggie, but it means I have to decrease the size of the stem fitting a bit.

I'd probably be in for a full 104 key set.

Full TKL please.

Make it better and do Topre!