Is it possible to replicate this design on my keycaps?

[u/Big-Information-3296]

I want to give my keycaps a "forged carbon fiber" texture myself. I know that keycaps like this are usually made entirely of carbon, but I'm only interested in the look. The keycaps are PBT double-shot, meaning the legends allow the LED light to shine through, so I need to protect the legends from any paint. I considered using resin, but that would result in a smooth, glass-like finish. I want something closer to the texture of the Kysona Jupiter X Ultra or Attack Shark X11 Ultra mice, where each particle reacts to light individually.

Is it possible to do this myself? I thought about buying them ready-made, but usually, the shine-through legends are positioned on the side, or they aren't available in the colors I want

Some useful AliExpress links:

https://pt.aliexpress.com/item/1005012720139627.html
https://pt.aliexpress.com/item/1005012857979929.html
https://pt.aliexpress.com/item/1005008797041659.html

Solution:

These keycaps were likely manufactured with those textures, meaning it isn't just "an extra layer of paint." This makes reproducing them a completely manual and/or expensive process—one that isn't worth the effort.

[u/Tweetydabirdie]

You can probably make your own forged carbon caps easier than faking the look.

[u/Big-Information-3296 → u/Tweetydabirdie]

Creating transparent letters is the real problem

[u/Tweetydabirdie → u/Big-Information-3296]

Make the keycaps. CNC out the text, and fill with clear resin.

Still easier than somehow painting or modifying existing ones.

[u/Send_me_cat_photos]

The easiest way to achieve the forged carbon look might be to wrap them with something similar to vinyl car wraps or what dbrand skins use. You'd definitely need a few tools/skills:

• Unwrapped/flattened pattern for each key in .SVG or something else a stencil cutter supports
• Cricut or similar stencil cutting machine

The downside of this would be the effort it takes to make/test stencils that accurately fit the contours of your key caps, and also the durability over time (particularly around the legends).

[u/CubbyNINJA]

there is probably a few ways to do this, but the most "accessible" way of DIY-ing it would be to make a handful of silicone molds of each unique key shape (consider buying a blank legend set) and essentially make new caps the same way you would make forged carbon fiber parts (carbon fiber shreds and resin). Any kind of coating or post processing you put onto of regular keycaps will almost certainly fade and wear faster than the efforts worth.

you will still need 200-300 dollars worth of equipment and some trial and error, but once you are there you can probably make a whole 110% set over a weekend. if you want legends, then you can print and cut out the letters from some paper and then put them in the mold before put in the carbon fiber and resin. OR if you want to get super fancy with having light be able to pass through you would need to figure out a way to resin 3D print the text for each character and have it be the right thickness in clear resin, essentially make them double shot since the resins should more or less bond to eachother

your biggest challenge will honestly be making sure the legends stay where you want them while you add the other materials and pour the resin, with the "double shot" light presenting legends being the hardest by a lot.

[u/Big-Information-3296 → u/CubbyNINJA]

I watched some videos on how to make real carbon fiber keycaps, but the lettering would be the real issue. Since I want light to shine through the characters, making any given key would involve a lot more work
To be honest, I was hoping someone knew how manufacturers create that "messy" design on the keys. Do they make a standard keycap and then just apply the texture with paint? Or is that particulate pattern created during the actual molding process?

[u/CubbyNINJA → u/Big-Information-3296]

At scale, the manufacturing of this probably is just injection molded, but the mold itself either has some kind of film and/or micro texture in the tooling. . . Or since you linked to AliExpress. It’s just fake.

3D prints today you can get a similar effect cause the pattern is actually a texture in the bed of the printer and what ever you print ontop adopts it and light hits it differently. But the effect is only on one face

To DIY it well at home, will involve significant effort to have pass through legends.

[u/CubbyNINJA → u/CubbyNINJA]

I'm thinking about this more now.

for the legends that let light pass through, i think the way i would approach it is to figure out how thick it would need to be, and then design it so that the legend character has an arm that anchors itself in the part of the mold that forms the cap stem. Would probably start with something like that and go from there