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.

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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Keychains are only good if you actually go anywhere

Picked up an aluminum CNC switch keychain from mechanicalkeyboards.com. Some nerd I know said it was “cute”, so there’s that. I’m thinking of getting a few of these for gifts, so I wanted to make sure they’re nice.

They’re nice.

I chose a Cherry MX Tactile Gray as the second switch because I don’t have any right now in my tester.

Here’s how I’m going to leave it for now: Fosen Aquamarine switch, and an N5 Blue GMK Esc key from the Electric Bluegaloo mod set I purchased from KappaKapps awhile ago during a Black Friday sale.

Every day is Christmas if you’re always buying stuff

My Fosen Aquamarine switches came in today from Switchtop.  As others have described, the click is lower pitched compared to other clicky switches, and the tactile bump is more pronounced. I’ll open one up later tonight to see if it can be Jailhoused or can take a fingercrusher spring.

Edit: got impatient, opened one up. They’re more of a pain to open because the top housing design means my top removal tool won’t work on them. J-Spacers don’t really do anything for them, so they’re destined to be clicky, which is ok with me.

Time to buy another Team Wolf to put these in, because I have more switches than I do boards at this point.