So a while back I came across something called Vantablack, as you do when you roam the internet.
And it’s a material that absorbs 99.965% of visible light.
However, you can’t get your hands on that, as some guy bought it out.
And in kind of retaliation, an artist came up with the black line of paints.
And now, we’re up to Black 3.0 which is the blackest black acrylic paint.
And supposedly absorbs UP TO 99% of visible light.
And you see this stuff online, and it looks crazy.
And obviously because my mind is like always in mechanical keyboard mode, I thought, why
not paint a keyboard with it.
When you want stuff that’s readily available, KBDfans is a great place to go.
I haven’t tried out their Tofu HHKB, so I snapped up one of those.
This is a hotswap kit, so it comes with the case, PCB, and stabilisers.
And I got the black version just for reference, so we can see the difference in the end.
There’s just 5 Phillips head screws on the bottom, and it comes apart super easy.
And yeh, there’s just 2 parts.
So as we can see, the plate is not separate, so this is an integrated plate design.
I can’t paint here at my desk, so let’s move to the beloved garage which I haven’t
filmed in for quite a while.
So of course light has a huge impact on how things look.
So even just transitioning between these two locations, it already looks a bit darker.
But yeh, as an anodised finish, it has a bit of sparkle to it, and reflects light quite
a bit.
And this would be like the standard sort of finish you’ll see on black anode boards.
But let’s get to painting!
They say that you can apply it with a brush, roll, a spray gun, but I don’t have one.
So I went with a nice soft brush which is really important if you want a somewhat smooth
finish.
They also say that it’s thinnable with water.
Obviously the main concern would be that potentially it wouldn’t be as dark, but it would provide
a smoother finish.
For the first test I started with just the inside, straight onto the anodised finish.
And I did water it down quite a bit, but it seems to be going on relatively well.
Although when dried up a bit, it was pretty streaky.
It’s definitely matte, but not dark at all.
So I went with a thicker mix.
And here’s an example of lighting.
My light actually went out, and I had the garage doors open, so it was mainly natural
light, and clouds come by and stuff.
And it looks very black in this particular shot.
Okay, so I let it dry for just a few hours.
So the bottom section was with it quite watered down, and there’s a difference.
However, this is only the first coat, so we’d be going over that anyway.
I have spray painted a bunch of boards before, and normally I use primer which is an undercoat
that promotes adhesion.
So it sticks to nearly everything, and there’s different types, and yeh, it gives the paint
a surface to stick to really well, and therefore is more durable.
This time I just added a little bit of water just to make it smoother.
But the good thing about this is that when it dries up, it kind of evens out because
it’s so dark.
Alright, this is after 2 coats, but close to each other, so no real resting time in
between.
But it doesn’t look great to me.
It’s matte, so it’s not sparkling anymore.
But it just looks like matte black to me, not particularly dark, and no where near what
I’ve seen on the internet.
But apparently it gets darker the longer you leave it.
Even just comparing it to the bottle, you can really tell that it’s not that deep.
Although the bottle isn’t actually that dark, it’s just that a lot of light is hitting
it on the other side.
But still.
New day, time for more paint.
Honestly, I wasn’t really keeping it consistent in regards to the mixture ratio.
I was experimenting, and to be honest, it didn’t make much difference, whether I went
on thick or thin, it pretty much resulted in the same level of darkness.
And again here’s another example.
So depending on the light, one finish looks darker than the other.
We’ll get back to that at the end, but at the same time I was painting the keycaps.
Agesss ago, I bought some of these keycap trays, which I’ve used like once for hydrodipping.
And finally they’ve become useful again.
I got a set of EPBT black blank keycaps, also from KBDfans.
Black, again for reference.
And it was just the same process.
I think I may have even done like 4 or 5 coats, with a considerable amount of time in between.
Again, testing different mixes.
But I did not prime the caps.
And to add to that, I did like another 2 or 3 coats on the aluminium as well, because
I just wasn’t getting what I wanted.
But whatever, let’s put it together.
One of the main reasons I got this kit, besides the pretty affordable price, is that it’s
hotswap.
Just saves me a little bit of time for something that I legit won’t really use, because it’s
so delicate.
You can’t put any clear coat on top because it will ruin the finish and effect, and it
scratches super easily, even when typing and your fingernails make a mark on the keycaps.
So yeh, didn’t particularly care about how this types out.
That being said, to match the stealthy theme, the only appropriate switch in my opinion
were Gateron Silent Black Ink’s, which I also lubed and filmed just because.
And like right now, it looks pretty cool.
As seen, there are screws that allow you to screw the PCB to the plate, which did make
it easier to push the keyswitches in.
You can remove those screws afterwards because the switches will hold everything in place,
and it may potentially provide a more even typing experience without those screws in.
Well, it’s certainly really black, and really dark.
It’s by far the darkest keyboard I’ve come across ever.
And I haven’t seen anything like it.
The super stealthy aesthetic looks awesome on the desk.
Of course having no legends on the keycaps comes into play, but yeh.
Love it.
However, I think it’s very fair to say that I am a bit underwhelmed by the result.
And this is just from the hype built up from seeing other projects painted with this stuff.
I knew that it would be a bit much to expect complete darkness, and that’s fine.
But I did want the keycaps to blend more together.
Like having them less distinguishable really would have been an amazing look.
But it still does that better than any other keycaps, and to be fair, they did say UP TO
99%.
Let’s make some quick comparisons.
Compared to the original keycaps, the difference is absolutely massive, but they were pretty
grey to begin with.
Comparing it to GMK White on Black, it’s hard to compare the actual colour, but it’s
clear how it doesn’t really reflect light.
But on certain angles, you can kinda tell that the Black 3.0 looks a little greyish.
But again, it’s difficult to compare, because it’s matte versus satin.
It does have that soft matte feel as well, having a very slight rough texture.
But even applying it with a brush, it looks quite even.
The aluminium in my eyes looks to be pretty much the same colour.
Just as dark.
However the streaking is more noticeable here because of its larger surface area.
Like the bottom looks pretty bad, showing a bunch of fingerprints as well.
But we can really change its appearance with the lighting.
In dim lighting, especially on camera, it does look even darker, obviously.
I think part of the problem is the material.
It’s solid aluminium, so in my head it doesn’t really soak it up at all I guess.
Like on many examples, because it’s more of an artistic sort of product, they used
on it on paper, canvas, foam, stuff like that.
So perhaps that had something to do with it.
As for the keyboard itself.
It’s pretty nice.
All aluminium construction of course, and for a reasonable price of 159USD.
It features an integrated plate design, so it is slightly stiffer, as there’s like
no flex to the plate.
And that isn’t really the best for silent switches in my opinion, as that hardness translates
to more sound.
I had some good fun with this.
It did take a few days to paint, and I kept going over it hoping it would get better.
But it was really easy, nothing stressful, and the paint dries very quick to the touch.
Although I wouldn’t recommend doing this, the paint is pretty expensive, and I basically
made this keyboard unusable, as touching it ruins the whole point of doing it.
Still is something that’s really cool to look at though.
It’s as stealthy of a board as you’ll ever see, so I’m proud of having that.
There’s more DIY stuff coming, so stay tuned for that, and let me know what you think!