Four out of every ten keycaps we cast never reach the box. The one on your desk is one of the six that did, so it deserves better than a butter knife on the day you take it off.
How to remove keycaps without cracking the stem
Use a keycap puller, and use the wire kind. Its two wires hook under the edges of the keycap and touch nothing else. The plastic ring pullers that come free with many keyboards squeeze the keycap from every side, and hand-painted resin has nowhere to put that pressure.
Put the keyboard on a table so it can’t move. Hook the puller under two opposite edges, keep it parallel to the keycap, and pull straight up, slowly. If the keycap starts to tilt, stop and hook it again. A keycap that comes off at an angle is how a stem cracks. We gave the same advice in an end of year post back in 2017, and nine years later it hasn’t changed.
Long keys sit on stabilizers. Lift a spacebar, an Enter or a Shift from both ends at once so it rises level, and when it goes back, seat the stabilizer wire first.
Putting an artisan keycap back on is the gentle part. Line the cross under the keycap up with the stem of the switch, check which way the design faces, and press until it stops. It should go on with a thumb. If it needs force, the keycap and the switch are different types, and our post on whether artisan keycaps fit your keyboard explains why.
How to clean resin keycaps
A resin keycap is poured in layers, painted by hand and sealed under a clear coat. Cleaning it is mostly about leaving that coat alone. A soft, dry cloth does nearly all of the work, and a soft brush reaches the carved corners where dust likes to sit.
Keep harsh chemicals away from it. The sprays and solvents sold for plastic keycap sets were made for plastic. Don’t soak a resin keycap, and never put it in a dishwasher or an ultrasonic cleaner with the rest of your set. If you wash the whole keyboard, take the artisan keycap off first and let it wait on the desk until everything else is dry.
Sunlight is the slow one. Getting the colors right takes us a long time, and a summer on a windowsill can take them away in a way no cloth will fix. Keep your keycaps out of long, direct sun.
If it breaks anyway
Our keycaps carry a one year warranty from the day they arrive. A manufacturing defect gets replaced one for one, and we pay the shipping. If the keycap arrives in one piece and you still don’t love it, tell us that too. We don’t refund finished pieces, but we will remake yours until you are happy with it. The details are in our terms, and the one thing we ask is that you write to us before you reach for the glue.