Oh, I see, the milky top housing is some sort of special nylon formulation (listed as “Nylon PA66, milky housing” on the Gateron website). Originally, I thought it was just a typical nylon since some vendors only just called it nylon, without being more specific.
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The better comparison is the Gateron Summertime which is a full-milky housing example with a long pole stem. Contrary to the milky top’s reputation for providing a deeper, flatter-sounding top-out sound, the milky bottom contributes to a higher pitched, brighter sound especially with long pole stems.
The top and bottom housings definitely have their own distinct blends, but in general it’s been assumed that Gateron’s Milky material is a blend of PA66 with fiberglass.
And yes, the PC tops on most switches tend to have a jarring contrast in sound when paired with nylon bottoms, PC is primarily used to offer transparency for RGB backlight and shinethrough, but folks otherwise tend to prefer full nylon or full PC.
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I tried swapping Gateron Pro Glory’s POK stem with NK Cream stem in Cthulhu (NK Cream stem + Gateron Pro Milky top + Gateron Black Ink bottom).
POK stem in Cthulhu sounded mid-pitched, higher than Gateron Cream Soda but lower than Cthulhu. Louder too.
NK Cream stem in Gateron Pro Glory made the switch sound more interesting. In stock form, the switch makes clean and solid sound but kinda boring. NK Cream made it sound more enjoyable to me.
Good combos I think.
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My contribution: a “Cherry Silent Nixie”. Clear top, bottom housing and springs from a new MX Black Clear Top. Stems from a Cherry Silent Black. While the switches were opened, springs lubed with 105g0 and rails / legs lightly with 205g0. Definitely not silent but very muted. Very little sound on strike, an nice soft pop on return. My daily driver is loaded with these and co-workers are happy 
.
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I’m back to spread the word about a silent tactile franken that single-handedly convinced me to convert my daily to silents, despite not necessarily needing it to be that way. Oh, and it’s completely fine to use its parts stock~
『Grain Gold U4 / GGU4 』, the original “euphoria” silent top-bump tactile with a twist.
credit to butrejp for the recipe idea~
- Any Grain Gold wing-latch (2-prong) housing of your choice, play around with your desired color.
- Any Outemu silent tactile stem of your choice, whether you prefer the top-bump U4/Cream Yellow style or the mid-bump Lemon/Grey.
The result is a U4 (or Lemon) that, while it may be a bit less stiff on the bump, has firmer, less mushy impacts on both down and up strokes, somehow. It retains the short travel of the original U4/Lemon Outemu silent tactiles, with little post-travel remaining. There’s also slightly less leaf noises compared to the Boba leaf.
Spring choice just depends on how you like your tactile feel in general, go long or short as you fancy, the dampers can handle the forces.
My specific part choices ended up being Ajazz AS001/101 housings and Outemu Cream Yellow stems (Outemu Jade Yellow has the same exact stem), pricing for each was 17c and 15c respectively, amounting to a 32c total.
This can also produce a decent leftover tactile switch (the inverse of the parts) if the Grain Gold switch used had a tactile stem, so it can be 2 switches produced at that price too, the leftover being a regular long-pole tactile you can use elsewhere.
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Ahoy! What a great initiative. I’m also a big fan of playing around with different switches and components. I’ve recently been experimenting with combining linear and tactile switches to create a unique typing experience.
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Housing Compatibility:
- HMX Snow Crash (Original version)
- Gazzew Boba LT (likely any Gazzew switch housings)
Top housing + stem can be swapped between these switches.
Stem alone cannot be swapped as they’ll only fit their respective top housing.
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The Problem
I love TTC Bluish-White Silent Tactile (BWST) switches. However, they have a major problem that I’ve only recently begun to notice–seems I’ve become the type of person who notices stem wobble. And oh boy is it bad with these.
And I found a Solution for it! But, as it requires drilling, it’s not for the faint of heart. Or for those that mind destroying a bunch of switches for their stems, springs, and a silicone dampener. Also, the last of those, the silicone dampener, is a tiny dot of silicone at the bottom of the stem well, and it is a royal pain to extract, but it’s necessary to dampen the bottom out.
Ingredients
You will need one BWST and donor switch to provide the new housing. From my testing, most Outemu and Gazzew switches work, along with the Durock Mocha Chocolate (see compatibility notes below).
Confirmed working donors (I have made 90+ of each of these):
- Outemu Lime V3 (MX latch with LED condenser)
- Outemu Pear
- Gazzew U4Tx RGB
- Durock Mocha Chocolate
From the BWST’s, harvest:
- Stem
- Spring
- Bottom housing
From your housing donor switches, harvest:
- Top housing
- Bottom housing
- LED condenser (optional)
- one stem with the legs trimmed (optional)
Other tools/parts:
- Switch opener
- Tweezers
- Toothpicks (optional)
- Poron switch films (optional, to deal with any housings that deform from opening)
- Drill and <=2mm dia drill bit
Recipe
For the bottom housings, there are two ways to get the silicone dampener out of the bottom.
- The non-destructive but fiddly and time-consuming way: Use a toothpick or tweezers to turn the plug sideways, and then use a long wire with a tiny bend on the end to pull it out of the well.
- Drill it out with a ~2mm drill bit (any size that is smaller than the center hole will work).
I found the second method most reliable, especially when doing a lot of switches. Occasionally one would get a little damaged by the drill, but by and large the silicone used is very rigid (high Shore rating) and didn’t get damaged by the drilling.
Once you have removed all the dampeners, you can begin assembling your frankenswitches. I recommend this order:
- Set out bottom housing
- Tweezer place dampeners in the stem hole (just needs to be in it)
- Ram dampener into place and verify depth
- (optional) Put films on bottom housings
- Add BWST springs
- Separately, combine the stem and top housing (make sure the legs point in the right direction)
- Snap top housing assembly into bottom housing assembly
- (optional) Insert LED condenser if donor switch had one
Of these, step 3 is the one I spent the most time on, as the dampeners have a tendency to get stuck sideways in the hole and can take some convincing to lay flat. I used a stem with the actuation legs snipped off as my ram. To be the most useful, put your ram into an empty donor bottom housing and mark where the stem clears the stem rails. This allows you to judge whether the dampener is flat or not–there’s a noticeable height increase if it’s sideways.
Other Uses
One angle I haven’t much explored but looks quite possible is using the silicone dampeners in other switches without the BWST stems. E.g., they seem to work in Haimu bottom housings (despite TTC’s stems not normally working in those), which makes them usable to dampen Haimu Clipper frankenswitches.
Pix
Finally, here are some pictures, as my description is probably not enough here.
Here’s ~90 complete BWST+Outemu Pears. I’m calling this combo Slava Ukraini because of the colors.
Compatibility Notes
The stem of the BWST is a bit wider than most other stems I looked at. This makes a large number of the housings I tried incompatible with the BWST stems.
Known incompatible switches:
- Gateron Weightlessness, LongJing, Ink (I assume most won’t work)
- Every Haimu I tested
- Wuque Studio Silent Tactile
- Geon x Haimu Yellow Silent Tactile
- Haimu Pastel Mint Tactile
- Haimu Pastel Thistle Tactile
- Kinetic Labs Turtle Silent Tactile
- Most JWK/Durock (but see below)
- Durock Ice King Tactile
- JWK T1 Dark Amber
- MMD Princess
- KTT Matcha Tactile
- Bsun Hutt
Ones I found would at least accommodate the stems (didn’t necessarily test if the silicone plug would fit and allow the switch to fully actuate):
- Aflion Shadow (winglatch)
- Leobog Interstellar (winglatch)
- Most Outemu I tested
- Pear
- Butterfly
- Silent Yellow Jade / Silent Cream Yellow
- Lime (including non-winglatch V3)
- Gazzew switches (Outemu makes them, so this tracks)
- Durock Mocha Chocolate (surprising since no other Durock/JWK switch that I tested worked)
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