- This is Rathcaps, I make artisan key caps.
I'm gonna show you the equipment, process
and today we're gonna make a key cap.
(upbeat music)
All right guys, so I'm gonna show you
the, the main products that I use.
So today I'm gonna be using the Performance 8OD.
So obviously there's part A and there's part B.
I'm using Plat 40, the silicone
and that's how I make my molds.
Those are the two main products that I'm using.
Here's some other things we need to get.
We need a scale that way we can make sure the
measurements are perfect, super important.
We have some pipettes, toothpicks.
These are basically an artisan key cap,
casters, paintbrush, popsicles sticks
super important for when we're mixing.
That is the essentials here.
Before we get started, I did wanna show you guys
some safety equipment.
I have a respirator, a mask and I need a lot of gloves
cause you gonna make a big, big mess.
The next thing that I forgot to mention is I
use a pressure pot and I use an air compressor.
For me It's like an extra insurance
that there's not gonna be air bubbles.
It's not gonna be any holes or anything like that.
We're gonna get to some clay stuff now.
This is one of my favorite parts
about making an artisan key cap, for me
everything starts out as a little ball of clay.
Some things that I use also are these tools.
You can get them at art stores,
Michael's anything like that.
We use BBs as eyes, that's a little trick too.
For today's video, I already have him made
but I wanted to show you basically,
this is what it started like,
this little ball of clay and this is what I made.
So his name is Sapling, this is one of the guys I sell.
He obviously has a bunch of inspiration
from Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy.
It's a little tree bark dude, he's fricking adorable.
We made a sculpt,
next we're gonna get into how to make a mold.
I have a platform and I have, it's called an internal.
So this is the back of my key cap.
This is the stem, so I have a good buddy who designs these.
So he designs the box, he designs the platform
and he designs the internals, so this is what I use.
There's a bunch of YouTube videos,
I believe on how to use the LEGO System.
I used that when I first started
and as I've gotten better and
as I wanted to make things a little bit more professional
this is what I ended up doing.
We gonna put our sculpt on here.
All right, now that we got our sculpt
and our internal into our little box here.
What we gonna do next is we gonna to use the Plat 40.
When it's filled up, I'm gonna put them
in the pressure pot and I'm gonna kind show you guys
what they look like, so here we go.
Here is the mold of Sapling.
It picks up every little detail
and here is the internal of the box.
And then how this works is this closes up.
So you have a little box, so this is what we got.
We now have our mold.
Now we gonna actually make a key cap.
And now we gonna pick some colors.
So Aluma Lite has some amazing colors.
So this is where we can decide what we wanna make.
So for today's video, we'll do
one color here, one color for the eyes,
a little detail for the ears.
And then we'll do the final shot.
Let's add the black first, we don't need a lot.
All right, there we go, part A this is part B.
I'm gonna pour a little bit in each
just enough for one key cap.
We gonna fill up this one a little bit.
We gonna add the next part and we're at five.
Okay, perfect.
So we gat part A part B and what I'm gonna do now
is I'm gonna mix them up, again wear two gloves.
I can't click the video without having a cloth.
You go in here and make sure you get most of it out
For me I mix fast because it doesn't
really matter because I'm putting my caps
in the pressure pot.
All right we gat a good mix, put that right here.
I'm gonna put this right here.
All right, I'm gonna use the toothpick.
Here we go.
And I'm gonna add a little bit for the eye.
I wanna do the next part.
If you mess up, you gotta wait for it to cure
and then you can take it all out.
So I see, you can see already,
I gotta little dot, that's okay, it'll come right out.
But the eyes are in, so what I'm gonna do
is I'm gonna quickly now run to the pressure pot,
put this guy in and take him out
in like, I don't know, 10, 15 minutes.
Okay, so we've got some cured eyes in here.
We're good to go.
Next we gonna add it's color green.
All right, green is in same kind of concept here.
Scales zeroed out.
All right, so we gonna mix and I'm gonna do the Most part.
So for me, this angle is the best.
I'm gonna do my best to get it
on the camera for you guys.
Again just the toothpick, a little dabs.
You can also do whatever you want.
This is what I do.
So here let's do a little bit of detail.
Like we'll do kind of see kind of look here.
You guys can see, I'm gonna let it sit like this
just for like 30 seconds to a minute,
make sure it's all down.
And then we just gonna put it in the pressure pot
I'll be back in 10, 15 minutes.
Okay so last but not least, I have the final colors in here.
It's brown a little bit I will wipe.
So I'm gonna get my part A, part B
mix them up and I'm gonna put it right in
and let it drop down into the Stem.
So I know its flow, then what I'm gonna do,
I'm gonna fill the cap obviously and close it up
and I'm gonna go right in the pressure pot.
So it's been a little bit over an hour.
Let's kind see what this looks like.
So this is the unboxing, so to say.
Here we go, everything's cured properly,
the eyes are good, I'm gonna pop that out.
The last thing to do is basically sand it off,
put it on a keyboard.
So I just sanded them down a little bit.
And what I did is I took the escape key off,
placed them on here, he is now on.
He's mounted, we got ourself a Sampling cap.
That is the key cap.
And this is the process of how I make mine.
(upbeat outro music)