Visited Signature Plastics for real
- litster
- Location: Washington State, USA
- Main keyboard: KMAC2, The Cheat
- Favorite switch: Brown, Topre, Red, BS
- DT Pro Member: -
As you might remember, back in March 2012, I drove by Signature Plastics and took a couple of pictures from the outside. Yesterday, Ben from SP invited a few of us in the Greater Seattle area to visit SP. And we did. Ben took us for a tour around the factory, explained to us how font legends are made, doubleshots keys are shot, and how dyesub keys are dyed. Here are a few pictures of the keycaps I took home.
Here are pictures of my PS loot:
Goodie Bag:
What's inside the goodie bag:
What is known as the first shot:
Keycaps after the second shot, these are our custom-made OP caps:
These are made with custom metallic silver color, not available to order. We made enough for metallic silver blank WASD and the nipple keys. Well actually more than enough for two rolls of blanks:
A variety of spacebars, very nice colors:
A variety of first shots. Some of these have transparent clear as the second shot, and you can see how the first shot and the second shot are joined together:
Super thick keycaps, heavier than your regular keycaps:
Marble style, not available for order:
Silver and clear first shot keycaps. The CapsLock keys are metallic red. Both are not available for order:
These I think are the coolest of all. The second shot is made of RUBBER! Not available for order:
Also very cool, wood style keycaps, Not available for order:
Some other random keys:
Here are pictures of my PS loot:
Goodie Bag:
What's inside the goodie bag:
What is known as the first shot:
Keycaps after the second shot, these are our custom-made OP caps:
These are made with custom metallic silver color, not available to order. We made enough for metallic silver blank WASD and the nipple keys. Well actually more than enough for two rolls of blanks:
A variety of spacebars, very nice colors:
A variety of first shots. Some of these have transparent clear as the second shot, and you can see how the first shot and the second shot are joined together:
Super thick keycaps, heavier than your regular keycaps:
Marble style, not available for order:
Silver and clear first shot keycaps. The CapsLock keys are metallic red. Both are not available for order:
These I think are the coolest of all. The second shot is made of RUBBER! Not available for order:
Also very cool, wood style keycaps, Not available for order:
Some other random keys:
Last edited by litster on 05 Nov 2012, 19:00, edited 2 times in total.
- webwit
- Wild Duck
- Location: The Netherlands
- Main keyboard: Model F62
- Favorite switch: IBM beam spring
- DT Pro Member: 0000
- Contact:
Cool stuff, I like all the hybrids/half products!
- Broadmonkey
- Fancy Rank
- Location: Denmark
- Main keyboard: Whitefox
- Main mouse: Zowie FK2
- Favorite switch: MX Black
- DT Pro Member: -
- Contact:
wow, those metallic keys look great and that blue half done Caps Lock would look killer on my keyboard
- litster
- Location: Washington State, USA
- Main keyboard: KMAC2, The Cheat
- Favorite switch: Brown, Topre, Red, BS
- DT Pro Member: -
Ben was our host. He is the technical manager there. He made a lot of those caps as experiments. A lot of them are hard to make consistently so it would be hard for quality control.
- trax
- Location: Belgium
- Main keyboard: HHKB Pro 2 Type-S
- Main mouse: ZOWIE FK2
- Favorite switch: Topre
- DT Pro Member: -
Dear lord do they make all their caps like that?litster wrote:Just got OK from Ben that I can post this video. It gives you a very good idea how a keycap is made.
No automation?
- webwit
- Wild Duck
- Location: The Netherlands
- Main keyboard: Model F62
- Favorite switch: IBM beam spring
- DT Pro Member: 0000
- Contact:
Yummy. Like Belgian waffles.
- Vierax
- Location: France (Lille)
- Main keyboard: Tipro MID KM128 Bépo layout
- Main mouse: Kensington Orbit Trackball
- Favorite switch: MX Clear / MX Grey (under thumbs)
- DT Pro Member: -
- Contact:
thx Litster that's a very instructive thread !
- guilleguillaume
- Location: Barcelona, Spain
- Main keyboard: Kmac Mini
- Main mouse: Razer Abyssus 2014
- Favorite switch: Topre
- DT Pro Member: -
Too bad those keys are not for order...
Amazing combo. Why is this not available for order?
Amazing combo. Why is this not available for order?
- Daniel Beardsmore
- Location: Hertfordshire, England
- Main keyboard: Filco Majestouch 1 (home)/Poker II backlit (work)
- Main mouse: MS IMO 1.1
- Favorite switch: Probably not whatever I wrote here
- DT Pro Member: -
- Contact:
I expect the wiki article on [wiki]Double-shot molding[/wiki] to be expanded with a lot more illustrations now! ;-) (Note that the consensus is no watermarks on images.)
- litster
- Location: Washington State, USA
- Main keyboard: KMAC2, The Cheat
- Favorite switch: Brown, Topre, Red, BS
- DT Pro Member: -
I think they are new. Ben put these out and asked for our opinion.guilleguillaume wrote:Too bad those keys are not for order...
Amazing combo. Why is this not available for order?
Here is a close crop of the same picture.
-
- Location: Germany
- DT Pro Member: -
haha that is pretty much how I had imagined it.
that half finished caps lock looks great.
any photos of the facility or melissa?
PS YAY ROUND 4 pause key
that half finished caps lock looks great.
any photos of the facility or melissa?
PS YAY ROUND 4 pause key
Last edited by mintberryminuscrunch on 05 Nov 2012, 20:16, edited 1 time in total.
- litster
- Location: Washington State, USA
- Main keyboard: KMAC2, The Cheat
- Favorite switch: Brown, Topre, Red, BS
- DT Pro Member: -
Melissa wasn't there. Ben was the only one who was there with us. But Melissa and the own Bob prepared the goodie bags for us. If we didn't scare them off, Ben said he might do it again, in 10 years .
I have more pictures. Most of them I should not post due to confidentiality. When we where there, we saw a few group buys' productions in progress (but paused for the weekend).
I have more pictures. Most of them I should not post due to confidentiality. When we where there, we saw a few group buys' productions in progress (but paused for the weekend).
- Acanthophis
- Location: Germany
- DT Pro Member: -
So, a translucent 1shot + a non-translucent base would make keycaps for keyboards with backlight?
-
- Location: Isle of Man
- Main keyboard: Kinesis Advantage
- Main mouse: 3M Vertical
- Favorite switch: MX Brown
- DT Pro Member: 0009
I love the metallic red colour - would buy a set without hesitating.
After seeing the video, I don't feel bad about spending so much money on caps - I never realised how much human input there was in the process.
After seeing the video, I don't feel bad about spending so much money on caps - I never realised how much human input there was in the process.
- oneproduct
- Location: Quebec, Canada
- Main keyboard: Poker X KBC
- Main mouse: Kensington Slimblade
- Favorite switch: MX Brown
- DT Pro Member: -
I totally want that spherical Vim key.
I guess they have a bunch of stuff from old group buys just sitting around that we can't get our hands on!
I guess they have a bunch of stuff from old group buys just sitting around that we can't get our hands on!
- oneproduct
- Location: Quebec, Canada
- Main keyboard: Poker X KBC
- Main mouse: Kensington Slimblade
- Favorite switch: MX Brown
- DT Pro Member: -
Yea, there is. I bought one and that's why it would be awesome to have a spherical Vim key to go with it. I've been sort of looking out for one in the classifieds over in geekhack but nobody seems to have any spare ones. It's not that popular a novelty key to begin with being the problem, so there's probably not too many extras floating around.litster wrote:it would be pretty cool to get a 87/104 set done with spherical profile. There is a set like that with 7bit's round 4, right?
-
- Location: USA
- Main keyboard: KBC Poker MX Red
- Main mouse: Logitech MX Revolution
- Favorite switch: MX Red
- DT Pro Member: -
I quite like the look of marbled and 'wood' caps. Lots of stuff I knew they could do technically that I have asked them about in the past they claimed could not be done shown there. Hopefully they will reconsider that position now there is proof they can.
- webwit
- Wild Duck
- Location: The Netherlands
- Main keyboard: Model F62
- Favorite switch: IBM beam spring
- DT Pro Member: 0000
- Contact:
Fake metal and marble looks cheap to me. The wood caps looks like baked turds. It had to be said.
- TheQsanity
- Main keyboard: Atm: Das S Ult
- Main mouse: Atm: Razer Lachesies
- Favorite switch: Atm: Brn or Blu. Wanting to try Grn Wht and Clears
- DT Pro Member: -
We need more nipple keys
-
- Location: USA
- Main keyboard: WASD V1, Filco Ninja Majestouch-2 TKL
- Main mouse: RAT 7
- Favorite switch: Cherry MX Red
- DT Pro Member: -
Are there any pics of the group buys that you can show ?litster wrote:Melissa wasn't there. Ben was the only one who was there with us. But Melissa and the own Bob prepared the goodie bags for us. If we didn't scare them off, Ben said he might do it again, in 10 years .
I have more pictures. Most of them I should not post due to confidentiality. When we where there, we saw a few group buys' productions in progress (but paused for the weekend).