Hi keyboard friends, I’m going to go for the royal/regal people in the galaxy theme, it’ll have celestial bodies and perhaps a few colorful cartoony but regal characters in dark blue coz’ the keycaps would be dark blue. The case color needs to be something else besides white unless a white case/bezel is ok to match with dark blue keycaps with the RGB on in the dark (holistic approach). Is there wrap for keyboard cases (like car wraps)? If yes, what keywords should use to search for them. I’d like for it to be a wrap so I can change themes if I over the current theme.
Thank you. God bless you.
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While I don’t know of anyone who sells pre-cut keyboard-specific wraps, I can tell you from experience that vinyl wrapping is totally doable on keyboards:
I built this for a friend a couple years ago, and used laminated car wrap material with air release channels in the adhesive.
I got the print from a local sign shop using a file I’d prepared - most sign places also do vehicle wraps, or can at least produce prints with the material. The lamination makes it a bit harder to work with, but also makes it resistant to abrasion and skin oil, so I highly recommend it for keyboards. The air release channels in the adhesive prevent bubbles - vinyl without them is cheaper but not worth it IMO.
As for the wrapping process, it works just like a car - so any given tutorial online for wrapping car parts (say, rear-view mirrors with their curves) should be informative for the process.
The above example is an outboard design; that is, the switch plate is also the top case. That made it easy to wrap, having curves in only one axis and otherwise being flat - but - I had to hand-cut all 104 switch holes after wrapping the plate - and that was not a fast process. Due to the stretchy nature of wrap material, I don’t recommend trying to get it pre-cut like you might see with console skins, which are made of a less stretchy material not intended to wrap around complex curves.
It’s a very manual process that can be pretty challenging, but if applied properly, the wrap will last for years even in pretty harsh conditions - and of course the other bonus is you can print literally whatever you want on the stuff. If you do go to a sign shop to have a wrap printed, I’d let them know the print is intended to be viewed up close and ask them to please use the slow / high-detail setting at 300 dpi - most of the time that material is used it’s printed at a high speed / lower detail because of the large size and intended viewing distance. Fine for a van, but that will look pretty meh on a keyboard.
All of this of course means you’ll have to either set up your own artwork or get someone else to; if you’re not in a rush I can probably help with that. Let me know if you have any questions - I’ll be as helpful as I can. Cheers!
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Cool, I almost bought washi tape with graphics on it but I thought in a few weeks the glue could become gunk even if they use rubber glue (like in high quality gaffer’s tape).
We should petition the custom keyboard companies to offer wraps that’s easy to remove if one finds a cool set of keycaps and the case color doesn’t look well with it. I think there’s a huge market for keyboard case wrap which could even extend to keycaps wrap pre-cut to the keycap’s dimensions and profile (not sure how durable that is though compared to printed with dye sub) and for the cables as well so that could have a design not just solid or gradient colors, all pre-cut already to the profile of the keyboard from 40% to full size keyboards, one just uses the a blow dryer to shrink them. Maybe this can be a Drop thing and begin a new accessory for keyboards, wrap for all keyboard parts, pre-cut by (if car wraps are not flammable, perhaps it can be better damper than DIY double tape with electrical tape and it’ll look more professional)? We can even wrap with translucent wrap the boxes and dust cover so it’s not just transparent acrylic but has translucent graphic on it while the keyboard’s RGB is ON as a display piece (weak lamp).
Thank you.
