Month: February 2017

Pic of the day: Keycap Kid Inner Key

Here’s an interesting one: this is KEYCAP KID‘s first foray into “artisan” keycaps. There has been some discussion as to what defines an artisan keycap, as his “Inner Key” was actually digitally sculpted, and 3D-printed. After printing, it is hand painted to it’s selected colorway. For his first cap for sale (with very limited numbers of 10 per colorway for now), he knocked it out of the park, in my opinion.

Not only is it incredibly high quality (it was printed using photopolymer resin, so no “lines” or any of the other pitfalls of traditional 3D-printing), but it’s an incredibly interesting and detailed design. I am looking forward to what he comes out with in the future if this is just a sample of what he can do.

Babby’s first jellykey

Welp, I finally got my first Jellykey. The much vaunted joinhandmade keycaps from Vietnam have always eluded me, as I always miss out on them on the secondary market, or always miss out on the group buys.

This particular keycap is the Jelly Saga Christmas Treat cap in peppermint that I ordered back in November, and it arrived today after a bit of a to-do (USPS wasn’t as cooperative in delivering this as they should have been, but it all worked out).

Their keycaps have always had a reputation surrounding them, with nearly everyone saying they are very high quality, and you know what? It’s a spot on description.

For anyone not familiar with casting in resin, making something that is poured resin that has multiple layers is a tricky process, and the more layers involved, the higher the risk of failure and having to completely scrap the item you were casting.

These caps are all made by hand. Someone made the mold, someone poured the resin, and someone did the finish work. They actually have a great page on their site about what goes in to creating these caps here: https://www.jellykey.com/our-craftsmanship

Needless to say, even though this is a relatively simple design, its execution is gorgeous.

Pictures also can’t convey just how nice this cap feels. Every surface is so incredibly smooth, you can’t help but run your finger all over it. It’s just so… smoooth.

All the usual hallmarks of a well made artisan are here as well: nice, thick walls, strong stem, superb fit on the keyboard. It uses an MX-compatible stem, and is R4 OEM profile. The packaging is their standard Jellykey packaging, which is to say fantastic. I am a sucker for good packaging and package design, and I love the presentation box their keys come in.

This will now live on the Escape key position of my ABKO, as it matches nicely with the rest of the board.

While this is my first Jellykey, it’s certainly not going to be my last.  I have more heading my way, and I know that I will be just as happy with them as I was with this.

Random questions answered: #3

So a few people have asked basically the same 2 questions, being

  1. How many keyboards do you have, anyways?
  2. What keyboard do you use the most/is your daily driver?

The answer to the first one is “a lot”. As far as actual number, I think it currently stands at 12 (and I have a few more headed my way). Not all of them are in the same place at any one time though, as I tend to lend them out to friends to help them find a keyboard that suits their needs.

The second question is pretty simple. The keyboard I find myself using is surprisingly not an MX-based keyboard. It’s also not a custom keyboard either (yet, at least), and is probably a board most people have never heard of before.

My daily driver board is an ABKO HACKER K945P, which is a Korean electrocapacitive (i.e. a Topre-clone) tenkeyless keyboard with 55g domes, and has been for awhile now. I cycle in and out with other boards, but I always end up coming back to this.

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Artisan review: CatCaps

Over the weekend, I received some artisan caps from Reddit user catweewee of CatCaps. I had actually initially ordered a cap some time ago, but due to some miscommunication on both our ends, my original order never made it to me. After discussing it with CatCaps, we realized what the issue was (the short story is that my address can be confusing, and has resulted in shipments from other vendors to never make it to me as well), and she graciously resent my order with some additional caps thrown in for the hassle.

What I received was a Jimmie the Scottish Fold cap in Aurora blue, a Bobby the Walrus in gold, and another Bobby the Walrus in cotton candy (which is doubleshot). I had previously purchased one of her AntCaps in the light mint colorway, so I was already familiar with her work.

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