Making the rough from the smooth
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Palatino
- Location: England
- Main keyboard: Fluctuates.
- Main mouse: Of no interest.
- Favorite switch: Too early to tell.
ABS keycaps get smoothed down and shiny through use, making them less pleasant than their newer, rougher selves. I'm wondering if anyone has tried restoring their texture, through either physical or chemical means? Would rubbing them with fine sandpaper, for instance, bring back some of their original feel? If no-one's tried it, I'll give it a go.
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paperWasp
- Location: Czech Republic, Europe
- Main keyboard: CHERRY G80-3000 S TKL
- Main mouse: Microsoft Basic Optical Mouse 2.0
- Favorite switch: MX Brown
Wonder if there are some translucent stickers made of sturdy plastic bringing back the rough surface (instead of localisation)?
My bigger problem are gradually disappearing F J homing bumps from my PBT(!) Cherry keycaps though.
My bigger problem are gradually disappearing F J homing bumps from my PBT(!) Cherry keycaps though.
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hellothere
- Location: Mesa, AZ USA
- Main keyboard: Lots
- Main mouse: CST2545W-RC
- Favorite switch: TopreAlpsHallEffectTopreAlpsHallEffectTopreAlps
DOUBLE SHOT ONLY COMMENTS.
+1 on the sandblasting. I've read posts here about it. The results are very nice.
I tried to make keycaps more glossy on a Matias ergo with black caps. It was mostly done with a magic eraser, which is essentially a low abrasive sanding sponge, a bit of cleaning compound that you'd use for a car, and caranuba wax. Those came out nicely.
For getting keycaps to look more like new, I used Novus Plastic Polish. That worked OK.
I've used fine-grit sandpaper -- usually start with around 2000 grit and go higher -- to restore the legends on some keycaps. I had the best success on caps that have colored or grey legends. I can then hit them with a bit of that Novus stuff. This has given me the best results.
I've attempted to use my "Dremel" tool and some polishing wheels. That's failed. The tool is too fast and/or I'm not steady enough to get it to work properly and/or I need a much softer polishing bit.
FWIW, it's probably definitely easier to either buy a keycap set or buy another keyboard with the same mount and harvest the keycaps. Especially if you're talking MX mount, as there are a lot of nice sets out there for low prices. I was just looking over Alps sets from Tai-Hao and the US price per set, including shipping, was $53. That's around the price of a ebay Alps clone keyboard. However, there are some folks that sell single caps, so your cost may go down from $53 to $5.30.
+1 on the sandblasting. I've read posts here about it. The results are very nice.
I tried to make keycaps more glossy on a Matias ergo with black caps. It was mostly done with a magic eraser, which is essentially a low abrasive sanding sponge, a bit of cleaning compound that you'd use for a car, and caranuba wax. Those came out nicely.
For getting keycaps to look more like new, I used Novus Plastic Polish. That worked OK.
I've used fine-grit sandpaper -- usually start with around 2000 grit and go higher -- to restore the legends on some keycaps. I had the best success on caps that have colored or grey legends. I can then hit them with a bit of that Novus stuff. This has given me the best results.
I've attempted to use my "Dremel" tool and some polishing wheels. That's failed. The tool is too fast and/or I'm not steady enough to get it to work properly and/or I need a much softer polishing bit.
FWIW, it's probably definitely easier to either buy a keycap set or buy another keyboard with the same mount and harvest the keycaps. Especially if you're talking MX mount, as there are a lot of nice sets out there for low prices. I was just looking over Alps sets from Tai-Hao and the US price per set, including shipping, was $53. That's around the price of a ebay Alps clone keyboard. However, there are some folks that sell single caps, so your cost may go down from $53 to $5.30.