Disclaimer

This is a review of the services offered by FK custom. I was not gifted a set nor paid to say anything positive. I paid for a custom set with my own money. I’m writing this review mainly due the lack of reviews on it and the lack of pictures that weren’t taken with a potato camera (no offense).

Background

I love the simplicity of blank keycaps especially for choc boards. But ever since I saw pictures of the MBK Legend Keycaps with Hiragana legends I’ve felt the urge to get me a set with non-latin legends just for the cool look. Unfortunately, the MBK Legend Keycaps were sold as a group buy which I missed out on.

Ever since then I was on the lookout for extras but haven’t had any luck so I decided to give FK custom a shot and get myself some MBK keycaps with customized legends.

Ordering

The ordering process is fairly straight forward. You choose your preferred material option and base color, then add the number of keycaps you’d like to customize. Finally, you can go ahead and put your custom legends or icons on the keycap. The web tool offers different font options right out of the box but also makes it easy for you to upload your own font and even vector graphics. It also lets you create templates to apply a setting to other keycaps.

I loved to fiddle around and try different font styles and font placements. I think I've spent too much time on creating weird sets that I will never purchase - but it was fun nevertheless to play around and pretend to be a keycap designer.

Delivery

After giving up the order I was shortly contacted by FK customs who wanted to make sure I put up the right order and informed me that it might take a bit longer to deliver than usual due to the summer break. I appreciated the open communication and I frankly do not expect a delivery in couple of days or even weeks due to the nature of this commission.

After 3 weeks the package safely arrived. Being in the keyboard hobby you’ll learn to be patient and always expect a late delivery so I was fairly surprised by the swiftness of it.

Packaging

The keycaps came in a simple box.

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And the keycaps were neatly vacuum-packed.

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I definitely prefer this sort of packaging instead of having loose keycaps in a plastic bag which could rub on each other during transport and potentially damage the coating or the keycaps.

Keycaps

I ordered a set of MBK PBT+PU keycaps which are made of PBT and have a PU coating on it similar to MBK Glow (according to the website). The base material is white and then colored in your chosen color.

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I was very surprised at the crispness of the lasered legend and am very happy with the result.

I wasn’t sure that I would like the light grey colored legend on a black keycap, which I assume is the result of the lasering process, but seeing it in person made me actually love them. It isn’t too contrasty and gives it a bit more of a stealthy look.

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The coating also makes the MBK keycap feel smoother than the normal MBK blanks but it still has some subtle texture to it. I however do not mind it at all and it is as comfortable to type on as on normal blank ones.

Final words

So, all in all I’m happy with my purchase and time will tell how well the lasered keycaps will hold up. I hope this review was of some help to some of you.

You may of course ask questions and I’ll try to answer them to the best of my abilities but do note that I’m just a customer myself and questions regarding the service or product are best answered by the vendor.

CB34S is a 34 key column-staggered choc unibody keyboard that has wireless capabilities with the Nice!Nano and supports a Nice!View display. It's my second attempt at a PCB design and I couldn't have done it without the wonderful community.

The PCB is of course open sourced and can be found here: https://github.com/bubbleology/CB34S

KLOR is 34 keys split columnar staggered keyboard made by GEIST. I built it with Nice!Nano and without an OLED screen. Been regularly taking it with me to the office.