Good to hear. Curious, how did the latest round of toothpaste polishing turn out? Very interested in experimenting with some hyperglides I got.
Also, on the cleaning end, are you doing something like distilled water followed by isopropyl alcohol?
Haven’t had time. Too busy coding.
Nope. Just fill waterpik with tap water then make a big wet mess in the restroom.
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Okay thanks for the response!
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I’ve polished two switches with toothpaste for two hours:
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stock Cherry black - got smoother but only up to a point. Afterward, it still made hissing noise and key presses were sticking like Cream does before they’re broken in.
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diamond-paste polished Cherry black - this got really smooth, smoother than polishing with just diamond-paste. No hissing and no sticking despite some toothpaste remaining on the stem.
So I think polishing first with diamond-paste then polishing again with toothpaste will produce the best result. I know it’s a lot of work but it’s not like we can readily buy consistently smooth vintage blacks so at least this option is available for those willing to do the work.
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I have did ball rolling with a diamond paste and it yielded a considerable reduction in scratchiness
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2-step polishing would be crazy amount of work for me… I’m already quite satisfied with just diamond polishing + lubing.
I also got to think that just a tiny bit of scratchiness is pleasant to me provided that it is consistent across the switches.
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Yup. Diamond-paste polished Cherry black is smooth enough for me as well. It’s just that I sometimes get craving for Tangerine-like smoothness, only to be disappointed with inferior sound & firmness everytime.
I’m planning to repolish the extra set of polished blacks I have to see if that craving can be fulfilled. If I didn’t realize how useful Waterpik can be with cleaning, I’d not have even think about polishing twice because it’s way too much work.
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Just wanted to share that ‘double-polished’ switch feels smoother than switches polished just once with diamond paste, not just in stock form, but also with lube. To me, minor scratchiness that can be felt despite the lube is what separates normal-smooth switches from skating-smooth switches so, yeah, I think double-polishing is worth the extra effort for those who needs it.
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First toothpaste, then diamond paste?
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No, I did the opposite: diamond paste first then toothpaste.
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This is pretty cool. It’s been a while since I last polished switches, and I’d like to try toothpaste as a cleaning / polishing agent. I’ll use it on a few hundred vints and see how it goes.
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One unintended upside to my tinkering with polishing method is reduced interest in new switches. Thanks to polishing, I probably saved a few hundred bucks already. 
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Sun-dried Double-polished Cherry blacks!
Finished a 60% set of double-polished Cherry blacks. The result is at the low-end of skating smooth and consistency is high. Satisfied with how they turned out. I’m going to use them unlubed for a while to enjoy the naked smoothness.
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Well, ‘a while’ took only a day. Tried 205g0 but it felt too sluggish. Not sure why but my 25gm jar of 205g0 was nearly done and the mix felt different in a bad way. Thankfully, I had a similar jar full of 3204 so tried that and it felt wonderful and snappy.
How smooth is it? It’s definitely smoother than Cherry blacks polished with just diamond-paste. While I must admit it’s not as smooth as Tangerine, it sounds far better and feels more satisfying. If I had to compare, I think this batch is about as smooth as Marshmallow switches I received recently. BTW, Marshmallow sounds really good. The best sounding JWK manufactured switch IMO.
I’m happy enough with the result to be able to say I’ve reached the end of this tinker’s thread with a happy ending.
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You may be done, but i’m not quite finished. I still need to get the dirt off these vints (probably not going to polish them after all b/c would take several years haha)
This weekend, I am going to polish some cherry clears and sell them on mechmarket.
Vintage clears go for a lot of money and I want people to be able to have access to smooth clears. For a premium price, that is.
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Here to chime in on my experiences. Polished a batch of hyperglides with 0.1 micron polish on-and-off for about a week. I put the switches into unused switch plates and pressed them into a table with some thin foam (so as not to damage the switches), and pushed down and slightly away from me. Throughout the actuation process I would rotate and rearrange the switches to even out the surfaces I was applying force to.
The switches got significantly smoother, but the cleaning process was very involved. Would not recommend to those without a Waterpik / strong ultrasonic cleaner. The cheap ultrasonic cleaner I got from Amazon was struggling to get the paste off but luckily the Waterpik worked pretty well. Once dry, the switches did not feel exceptionally smooth, but after lubing they felt satisfyingly smooth - exactly what I was looking for.
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Well, I’m not completely done. Haven’t polished Gateron CAPs yet and I’ve been meaning to breathe some life back into my interest in Topre. When the courage to polish revisits, I’m going to double-polish my HHKB’s sliders to see how smooth I can make them.
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wow, really awesome project! i’ve got 120 rather scratchy greetech blacks that would be perfect test subjects for this. luckily i dumped my old cheap ultrasonic cleaner for something with temperature control and more power, so hopefully cleaning will be easy too.
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Yes i will give an update as well
So it does work on the clears
I got the dirt off the vints by ultrasonic + laundry detergent
I used small needlenose pliers to hold the stem in place and it works better thna a stem holder in my opinion because the force used is a lot higher. It makes the friction more which is better for breaking stuff in and smoothening it.
If you are working with cherry switches especially vintage cherry make sure to focus attention on the leaf as that is the most scratchy part of the switch. This is my finding from doing 4 sets of cherry switches from different time periods.
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Doing my part with updating, I remain very happy with two 60% boards with polished Cherry blacks (retooled version). I’m going to polish a set of the Hyperglide version, enough for a TKL, when they become available.
I did think about polishing Gateron Yellow KS-3 and CAP Yellows but decided not to as polished Cherry blacks have become my favorite.
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