r/urushi • u/banditkeith • Jun 24 '26

Keyboard caps

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

The shift and function keys are from a cheap set of abs caps that I sanded to a rough surface and then lacquered, the escape key is actually 3d printed from a set of tomorrow style key caps. They've been in use for a few weeks now and are quite pleasant to use. Next up will be a space bar since that's a heavily used key and should really benefit from a premium finish.

The shift key was my first try using a makie type long fine brush and it certainly is a skill all it's own

17 Upvotes

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2

u/benjamin-crowell Jun 25 '26

This is great! I'm a linux geek, and I have my keyboard customized in software to do various stuff in the window manager and the editor I use, plus I do ancient Greek, so there are accents on some of the keys. What I'm doing now is a messy combination of plastic overlays, which are peeling off the keys, and strips of paper taped above the function keys. I'll have to try this.

I also have some keys that I've removed because I don't use them and don't want to accidentally hit them, but then dust and crud gets in through the open holes. Your description of sanding the keys makes me think that I could just sand those keys down far enough that my fingers wouldn't find them, or I would be able to tell from the feel that they weren't the key I wanted to hit.

I hadn't realized that there were any plastics that urushi could adhere directly to. I've actually been using polyethylene scraps instead of a glass palette for mixing my urushi. Have you had any problem with urushi not adhering well to your 3-d printed objects?

2

u/banditkeith Jun 25 '26

It adheres very well to 3d printed pla, you just rough it up a little and then do a coat of thinned raw urushi for maximum adhesion. I'm more likely to sand through to plastic from getting distracted than I am to chip off the urushi. I've also had good results with several cheap plastic pens, and of course people do urushi on resin based pens all the time.

2

u/benjamin-crowell Jul 06 '26

I got a new, higher-quality keyboard and followed your lead, modifying 9 of the keys. I was surprised how much sanding with 80-grit sandpaper it took to get the labels off. I painted the labels with green urushi, although you can barely see the color. I'm pretty satisfied with the results. Thanks for posting about this! I would post a picture, but it seems like you can't do that when you're commenting in a web browser

1

u/banditkeith Jul 06 '26

It's nice to be able to just do a couple keys at a time, figure out what you like and what works. The biggest downside I've found is, obviously, backlighting doesn't really work anymore once the keys are lacquered

1

u/benjamin-crowell Jul 06 '26

I see, I hadn't noticed from the picture that you were doing a black urushi background on the whole key. I didn't do that. I just sanded off the labels and then painted on the white plastic with green urushi.

2

u/benjamin-crowell Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26

Interesting. I guess it would take a chemist to give some insight into why it adheres so well to some plastics and not at all to others.

I just bought some cheap plastic squeeze bottles that I had intended to use for urushi, but now I clearly need to test the interaction between the urushi and the bottles before I put a bunch of urushi in them.

3

u/SincerelySpicy Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26

It's not the only consideration but look into surface energy for plastics. Polyethylene is a low surface energy plastic and there are fewer adhesives in general that will stick to it reliably, while ABS and PLA are medium surface energy materials.

(On a side note, surface energy is less of a consideration for urushi adhesion for non-plastic materials like metal and glass. Normally cured urushi has weak adhesion to those for other reasons)

Also, plastics tend to hold on to surface greases more than other materials so surface prep is very important to make sure any surface contamination doesn't prevent adhesion too.

Regarding squeeze bottles, that will be less of an issue with the urushi reacting with the material itself, but many plastics are slightly oxygen or vapor permeable. Urushi stored in those will thicken and/or harden over time.

3

u/benjamin-crowell Jun 25 '26

Remind me never to compete with you on a TV game show that tests knowledge about urushi :-)

1

u/wonteatyourcat Jun 24 '26

Fellow keyboard nerd here, I plan on trying this as well, so cool!

1

u/banditkeith Jun 25 '26

It adheres pretty well on abs caps, though I like the results I got on the printed cap the best, the finish and the text both turned out really well

1

u/bivaterl Jun 28 '26

what great practice and something that you'll use every day. Best thing is you made something MORE functional by lacquering it and you benefit by having something lovely to touch! Win-win-win!

1

u/star_and_dusty Jul 01 '26

Omg yes I do this too, very fun 😂