I'm not to this forum so I will start by sharing my keyboard that I just dyed today! Its an Apple Extended Keyboard II with white ALPS switches from 1989 so it has the good white ALPS switches. I wanted to dye it as soon as I learned it was possible to do so. This summer I have been working on a Portal themed NZXT Phantom mod so I felt I should do my AEKII dye in the style of the keyboard found in Portal.

Here is a photo album of the process:
http://imgur.com/a/pJtIt#25

Overall I am pleased with the results. For those who are wondering I used RIT Dye. I am only disappointed that the Navy blue came out brown and the red just refused to dye the keys that appear peach colored, I tried both the powder and liquid red dyes!

Anyone dye a keyboard before? Anyone know of other dyes I can try to get the peach ones to be red? Anyone Know where I can get new caps so I can have my blue keys?

Looks good in my opinion. Any reason you've chosen those specific keys to dye red/peach? And why didn't you dye the function row as well?

As far as I know all attempts to dye a keyboard case so far have been disappointing and/or damaging. Lots of people have successfully painted and plastic-dipped cases though.

I'm surprised that that worked. I thought that the caps wer ABS.

Only the space bar is ABS on Apple keyboards of this vintage. I don’t know for sure what the rest are made of (PBT?), but it’s definitely not ABS.

The case itself is ABS, so dyeing it will likely end in disaster — the heat will either crack the plastic or cause it to warp. If you can do it at a very low heat, you might be alright. A better option would be to use some kind of paint followed by a transparent protective coat.

Even though they may not be what you were aiming for, I actually like the near-black keycaps. Are the legends still visible on them?

Caps look good, but the color seems uneven, or is it the flash that makes that look on the caps?

And btw, the caps are PBT, that's why he could do this.

huttala wrote:And btw, the caps are PBT, that's why he could do this.

Thanks for confirming the material from which the keycaps are made; I knew they weren’t ABS, but wasn’t 100% confident that they were PBT.

Forgot to ask: what’s the significance of the keyboard layout in-game?

koralatov wrote:Only the space bar is ABS on Apple keyboards of this vintage. I don’t know for sure what the rest are made of (PBT?), but it’s definitely not ABS.

The case itself is ABS, so dyeing it will likely end in disaster — the heat will either crack the plastic or cause it to warp. If you can do it at a very low heat, you might be alright. A better option would be to use some kind of paint followed by a transparent protective coat.

Even though they may not be what you were aiming for, I actually like the near-black keycaps. Are the legends still visible on them?

The flash of the camer affects the image a bit but the black keys are 100% solid black! I had them soak for about 45 minutes to an hour, at first they were dark brown/black but I let them sit longer and they came out jet black! The legends are not visible at all, but as long as I don't look at the keyboard I can type fine !

Daniel wrote:Looks good in my opinion. Any reason you've chosen those specific keys to dye red/peach? And why didn't you dye the function row as well?

When I was dying the function keys and the num lock key I experienced some issues. They were supposed to be Red but neither the powder or liquid RIT Dye would work even after long periods of soaking. I need to find a stronger red dye, there are rumors that RIT changed the formula for some of its colors but I am unsure.

koralatov wrote:Forgot to ask: what’s the significance of the keyboard layout in-game?

The layout on the keyboard is identical to an easter egg in Portal. Its a keyboard you can find in the game somewhere. I believe the letters on the yellow keys make up the name of a significant character in the Counter Strike series.

Glad everyone is liking my mod! When I got my first computer I had an AEKII but I lost it, I got my current one for 5 bucks at the MIT flea market in Cambridge MA US and modded it this summer with the Teensy board to give it USB functionality. I hope to get ahold of more AEKIIs and possible an AEKI for more color mods in the future. Despite the hardships during this dying process I really want to try it again with different color combos!

stratmaster458 wrote:The flash of the camer affects the image a bit but the black keys are 100% solid black! I had them soak for about 45 minutes to an hour, at first they were dark brown/black but I let them sit longer and they came out jet black! The legends are not visible at all, but as long as I don't look at the keyboard I can type fine !

That’s a bit of a shame. I was sort of hoping they’d come out like Topre caps; legends barely visible, but there if you look hard enough.

The layout on the keyboard is identical to an easter egg in Portal. Its a keyboard you can find in the game somewhere. I believe the letters on the yellow keys make up the name of a significant character in the Counter Strike series.

Cheers for clearing that up.

Glad everyone is liking my mod! When I got my first computer I had an AEKII but I lost it, I got my current one for 5 bucks at the MIT flea market in Cambridge MA US and modded it this summer with the Teensy board to give it USB functionality. I hope to get ahold of more AEKIIs and possible an AEKI for more color mods in the future. Despite the hardships during this dying process I really want to try it again with different color combos!

How did you do the Teensy USB mod? Is it internal, or external? I’d be really interested in learning more — I’d like to mod my main keyboard (an AEK) to use USB without an iMate if possible.

koralatov wrote:

stratmaster458 wrote:The flash of the camer affects the image a bit but the black keys are 100% solid black! I had them soak for about 45 minutes to an hour, at first they were dark brown/black but I let them sit longer and they came out jet black! The legends are not visible at all, but as long as I don't look at the keyboard I can type fine !

That’s a bit of a shame. I was sort of hoping they’d come out like Topre caps; legends barely visible, but there if you look hard enough.

The layout on the keyboard is identical to an easter egg in Portal. Its a keyboard you can find in the game somewhere. I believe the letters on the yellow keys make up the name of a significant character in the Counter Strike series.

Cheers for clearing that up.

Glad everyone is liking my mod! When I got my first computer I had an AEKII but I lost it, I got my current one for 5 bucks at the MIT flea market in Cambridge MA US and modded it this summer with the Teensy board to give it USB functionality. I hope to get ahold of more AEKIIs and possible an AEKI for more color mods in the future. Despite the hardships during this dying process I really want to try it again with different color combos!

How did you do the Teensy USB mod? Is it internal, or external? I’d be really interested in learning more — I’d like to mod my main keyboard (an AEK) to use USB without an iMate if possible.

This is the guide I used geekhack.org/index.php?topic=14290.0 although I am planing to put it in an enclosure as I hope to get a few more vintage apple keyboards and dye them all sorts of different ways, the one that I feel like using really easily. Righ not I just have the ADB connector pushed aside on the inside so I can have the usb cable run out the hole, kind of tacky.

And if you want to dye keys black and still see the legend just dye them for a shorter amount of time, I wanted mine to be jet black so I dyed them much longer than the recommended 15 minutes.

Too bad i don't know how to dye like this. I'm going to try vinyl dye spray first, and see what happens.