I would be very interested in a tutorial on how to shine GMK / ABS keycaps 
Will assemble the switches now. They are much smoother than stock. It has the skating smooth feel. There is still friction because lubricant has not been applied, but I’m very pleased with the results.
For 48 switches it took about 1 hour to polish and 1.5 hour to clean with toothbrush.
30 min later
I am testing my new lubricant 207 grade 2 on these switches, it feels very buttery. I would not recommend it to the average luber. Only to experienced users.
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Testing with unpolished/no paste bases, it’s a lot scratchier than the pasted-broken-in bases.
It is proof that the diamond paste works well even when not polished with a cloth or anything special.
I just used a toothbrush to brush all the diamond paste off under running water.
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Noice. Are those Gateron Milk Blacks?
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It’s Gateron milk top and black stem with Cherry bottom.
The Cherry base is giving me an issue, and I think it’s the leaf. I tested with leaf modding and it seems to fix the bump, making the switch nice and linear.
I would only use it on Not-frankenswitches just because those are guaranteed to work without issues like mine.
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Have not posted here in a while, but I wanted to share what my switches sounded like. Lily58 keyboard
The frankenswitch consists of Gateron linear stem and milk top, Cherry bottom and TX 65g spring.
Lube used is Krytox 207g2 on stem and Krytox 1514 on spring
Scuffed audio but it works to convey the sound
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Nice. Never tried 207g2 on linear. Did you mix it with oil to dilute?
I got a bag of scratchy as hell almost vint blacks I plan on trying this to whenever I finally get laid off for the winter with. Glad to hear everyone is having good results! Props to @donpark for posting this ideal & everyone who tested it out!
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NovelKeys Cherry restock being pushed out to January may very well mean the upcoming restock will be the Hyperglide version. Pure guess, of course. ;-p
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NovelKeys Cherry restock being pushed out to January may very well mean the upcoming restock will be the Hyperglide version.
Mike has confirmed that the next restock will be hyperglides.
I think the lesson from this is obvious in hindsight: polishing won’t turn rocks into diamonds. Scratchy retooled blacks are like raw diamonds.
I wonder if this has something to do with the housing composition of Cherry Blacks? If I remember correctly, Cherry switches have nylon housings. I’m thinking that maybe KS-3 (full nylon housing) gateron yellows would similarly benefit from switch polishing.
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I’m thinking that maybe KS-3 (full nylon housing) gateron yellows would similarly benefit from switch polishing.
Cool. I’ll try that, after hyperglides. Thx!
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I got the 0.5 micron temo paste but it feels too “dry” upon application. After 1 hour of ball polishing I do not feel it has any substantial effect on a bunch of stock retooled mx blacks.
Any ideas?
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It could be that the paste you got has dried up. The paste should be a little thicker than toothpaste but not dry. Can you share photos of the paste tube as well as stem with the paste applied?
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I added a little bit of water. You also need to break it in for a while.
if you could polish these new gateron Caps switches to where they are smooth… I think that would be the best switch on the market. Not sure if it’s possible to get them smooth enough though 
The feel and sound when they bottom out is absolutely amazing. The bad thing is they come factory lubed, so you’d have to clean them, polish them, clean them, lube them… ugh.
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While polishing can make Gateron Caps smoother, I think there is a limit because the potential surface area of plastic rubbing against plastic is much larger with the switch than regular MX switches. It’s a relatively large tube rubbing against a cylinder inside.
What matters is increasing the striking surface area size so I think MX switches can be designed without resorting to the stem-impaled-on-a-stick design.
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I did another batch of retooled blacks polishing following the donpark method.
First of all, the rolling ball technique is smart.
Second, I can visually observe the effect of the polishing on the stem, it is somewhat reminiscent of the marks the vintage blacks have.
Thirdly, alas, they still feel absolutely the same as the unpolished one.
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