Week in Keyboards #24
01 Dec 2015Not a huge amount of much this week.
Backlit POK3R on Massdrop
For those who want a backlit 60% this is a good option. The standard POK3R has been around for a while and has been quite well received. In general this is thought of as quite a nice stock 60%.
Possible New Vortex Board
There isn’t a lot too this as you never know if this will make it into production. This is a 40% ish prototype from Vortex.
Hmm...A brand new series coming soon!!!
Posted by Vortex Keyboard on Wednesday, 25 November 2015
New F62 and F77 Prototypes Slightly Delayed
This is not a major setback or anything. But at this stage everyone is patiently waiting for the full prototype so delays like this can be the most frustrating. Prototypes could be still a week or so away.
RoastPotatoes Fancy New Domain
It’s happening. blog.roastpotatoes.co All previous links should still work. Potentially this opens up the possibility of store.roastpotatoes.co
I also managed to miss my deadline of Friday newsletter. It will happen this week.
Other RoastPotatoes
My posters were going excellent up until today when I really looked at them. They are OK, but maybe not where I had quite hoped the quality would be. Reprint is coming on Thursday so they are slightly delayed. I will see what happens from there.
Designs for 4704 keyboards have moved along quite a bit and I am quite interested to see what I will settle with. I have designs wish legends and without and the relegendeble keycaps.
Please follow the RoastPotatoes Poster Thread if this interests or concerns you.
Typed on HHKB Pro 2
Excellent photo & excellent keycaps.
KatzenKinder is mildly back and had a RGB sale. I mentioned it a week or so ago when it happened and it had some very nice looking keycaps. This sale emphasised the simpler colours and the improvement that can be seen Katzen’s casting.
GirlDC has been maintaining the increased activity and shown new colours and new keycaps. It doesn’t look like these are available just yet. But I would keep an eye out on 
XX7 was on massdrop with the MEGATRQN design. It was available in Topre and MX with 3 colour schemes.
KeyKollectiv has been teasing the new design which is some sort of alien skull thing, but its name is Furt. I’m not sure what it is but it seems to be technically impressive. Having translucent surrounding the sculpt is probably not an easy process.
Pyrolovesmoney is a new maker who has started painting 3d printed keycaps. I do think there is something that can be added to some keycaps through a bit of paint. I am particularly fond of what Bosk has done with some of mine.
The name you have to copy and paste has been experimenting with hydro dipped keycaps. The main concern here is will they last under even a small amount of duress. I do like some of these off the wall colour combinations.
Gloyz has quickly appeared and maintained their detailed high quality casts. These are photos from the upcoming Christmas sales which I’m sure will be along sometime in December. My favourite out of those would be the holly. It makes use of their superior sculpting ability but in a simpler design.
I have been mostly making posters this month. But I did make some keycaps at some point. I have made new moulds for Heart Hugs as that is one of my favourite keycaps. The Heart Hug should be reappearing in new MX, Topre, and buckling springs.
I would say this is the most exciting news this week. The new Topre keyset up on massdrop. This is not a totally new idea as the design inspiration is Skull Squadron. 
