Apparently not many of us have ultrasonic cleaner.
I resorted to using a toothbrush to scrub the paste out. Much faster than using a brush.
3 Likes
I have a 30$ one that I’m not sure if it does something special 
so don’t cheep out to much.
1 Like
Very cool. I wonder how this would work on pre-retooled blacks where the housing seems significantly worse than the retools (like there is sand in the switch) as I’m assuming it’s the stem that is getting polished here. I have a couple of cop board’s full of them (harvested the spill guard sheets) that are currently unusable.
2 Likes
I’m assuming it’s the stem that is getting polished here.
It’s both stem and housing since stem coated with diamond paste with rubbing not just against the leaf but slider rails. That said, I’d add more polishing time to make sure. Say a few more hours of rigorous pumping (assuming you’ll be using a hot-swap board or lubing station upside-down).
I now have a 60% fully populated with polished blacks. It’s a hot-swap board that used to host lubed and filmed NK Dry Yellow switches. In comparison, lubed and filmed polished blacks are just as smooth and tight but has following improvements in-use.
- Sound - Oh, the sound. Dry sounds better than earlier JWK linears but still sounds hollow. Black sound is solid, best among switches. With POM plate, it sounds as clacky as Cream.
- Feel - Dry feels kinda soft when bottoming out. Black feels solid but not as harsh as Cream. Perrrfect.
Now for the bad news: I’m experiencing a bit of leaf issue. Some keystrokes are occasionally not registering. Not sure if the cause is:
- some moisture remaining in the switch
- some particles remaining on the leaf around the contact point.
- Black pin + Kailh hot-swap problem of some sort.
It seems to happen less often over time though which is good. I’m going to slide a piece of paper over the contact point of errant switch to see if that helps.
2 Likes
How much of a time and material/monetary investment was required to achieve this? Do you perhaps have any sound recordings or specific process notes to share?
1 Like
time: 2 leisurely days. should be doable in a day.
cost: retooled black switches (~$26), $14.99 for diamond paste combo pack.
sound recording: see YouTube for vintage black typing sounds.
process notes: there is only this thread for now.
Hope this answers your questions. If you need more, I’d suggest waiting for results from others that either confirm or contest my results. After confirmation, we can talk about documenting the process better.
4 Likes
I’ll eventually work on confirming this myself, but it’ll take a long while since I end up making everything a video lol
10 Likes
are you going to make cherry relevant again with this hack?
thank you for sharing this! will be watching updates closely
1 Like
Videos are good. 
2 Likes
- Cherry will be relevant again.
- Vintage black market crash of 2020.
just kidding…I think.
7 Likes
Okay great news IMO the paste had a positive effect on the smoothness of the switches. You do not need to be a switch whisperer to notice it which I was worried about.
Testing Method:
- 8 switches total.
- 0.5 Micron paste
- Break-in machine (2 w/diamond paste & 2 stock). Ran for 2 hours occasionally tweaking the positioning to generate off center hits.
- DonPark ball method (2 w/diamond paste & 2 stock) rolled a stress ball over the switches pretty intensely for 2 hours in various directions (used just a plate and no keycaps).
- Cleaned out the switches with water and a lube brush (easier then I expected probably like 5 to 10 brush strokes on each surface)
- Used an electric air blower to dry out the switches because I am not patient enough to wait for them to dry (also I have seen the problem DonPark reported resulting in water being in the stem part of the switch housing)
Results:
- Stock switches in both cases didn’t notice any change (or it was so small I couldn’t confidently say). I was surprised the break-in machine was so ineffective.
- Diamond switches were about even between both methods
- Trying to tell the difference between stock and diamond paste switches was pretty easy and became easier with keycaps.
- Compared a diamond paste DeskKeys filmed and lubed (3204 should have used 205g0 but close enough for now) vs stock switch filmed and lubed. The stock still had scratchiness that was not covered up by the lube. The diamond paste filmed and lubed felt superior.
- Sound wise they didn’t change between stock and diamond paste
(agree with DonPark’s assessment of Cream above) - Comparing against a Tealio V2 67g the sound pitch is much higher I prefer the cherry black. Smoothness wise Tealios is smoother (unlubed vs unlubed Diamond)
Next Steps:
- Try the 1 Micron paste a shot and see what it does (possibly 1 micron then 0.5 micron). That is going to take me a week or 2 to get around to it. This probably won’t result in an improvement but you never know…
Thanks to @DanPark for the idea and effort you put into this. It was a lot of fun seeing the process of this experiment!
Note this is next level time consuming to do. Not for the faint of heart. If you despise lubing this is not the thing for you.
Disclaimer: My switch experience is limited. I have never used vintage blacks. I jumped on this because it peaked my interest from a theory perspective. This is just my personal take and preference.
8 Likes
I have to agree.
Lubing = disassemble -> lube -> assemble.
Polishing = disassemble -> paste (like lubing) -> assemble
-> polish ->
disassemble -> wash -> dry -> lube -> assemble
Definitely not for feint of heart nor impatient. Lubing, at least, has no waiting period. For Vintage Blacks lovers and wishers, it’s more of a pilgrimage.
Polishing method: What I did was:
- populate a 60% plastic case with hot-swap PCB and plate with switches.
- place the case upside-down under my feet.
- turn on some good toe-tapping music while I work.
Smoothness: I think 0.25 micron paste may increase the smoothness.
7 Likes
My current hypothesis is that oil from the paste got on the contact point while washing because dripping isopropyl alcohol over the contact point fixed problem switches.
Two solutions to try:
- water-based paste.
- dunk the switch (or just the leaf part) in alcohol after washing.
Note that the switch needs to be completely dry before use.
3 Likes
I’d personally be hesitant to use isopropyl alcohol all over switches or switch components. Though, perhaps something like dental swabs could be effective for isolating the transfer of the isopropyl alcohol to the contact points? Still, very interesting testing going on in this thread. I’m tempted to prepare my stems in preparation for my JWKs I’m swapping into in a month or two. Do you have any specific words of caution or advice?
Another request, to anyone in this thread who has done these modifications, might you consider sharing pictures and sound tests of before/after?
3 Likes
I’ll echo that. I’m far from a plastics expert, but I do remember from my time in the signage industry that rubbing alcohol is not kind to acrylic. It can permanently fog-up and damage that plastic by causing tons of microscopic cracks in the surface.
I’m not sure if it would do that to POM, polycarb, or nylon - but it’s easy for me to imagine it undermining the smoothness of a given switch the same way it can ruin the shine of a clear acrylic display.
2 Likes
Yes, I used a dropper on switches away from keyboards. Readers should use their own judgements and common sense. Anything I try is after considering and finding the worst case risks acceptable.
1 Like
One of the switches (left shift key) had trouble again. This time, I disassembled the switch completely, removing the leaves, and cleaned only the contact point using a Q-tip soaked with 91% isopropyl alcohol. There was some little blemishes on or near the contact point and they’re all gone now.
The switch is functioning reliably now. Hope it stays that way.
1 Like
Did you have black build up on the stem legs after doing the diamond paste before cleaning it off? I should have taken a picture. I think it was like that in both the break-in machine and ball rolled ones. I cleaned the leafs with water when I did the clean out just in case but I only had 4 where you had a whole boards worth.
1 Like
Did you have black build up on the stem legs after doing the diamond paste before cleaning it off?
No, I didn’t notice any. But then black build up on black stem would be difficult to notice anyway.
I cleaned the leafs with water when I did the clean out just in case but I only had 4 where you had a whole boards worth.
I had about 5 switches out of 62 switches that I had contact problems with so it may make more sense to just handle problems reactively rather than proactively while cleaning. Wish I had a jig to remove pins. It’s a rather delicate operation for me.
2 Likes