When school starts in a few months I'm going to splurge a bit and get myself a great condition full size board like an FK-2001 and use it as my dedicated typing keyboard.
Should make writing boring essays much more tolerable!
You should, I wrote my entire PhD thesis on a ZKB-2R!
Of all the vintage keyboards in your extensive arsenal, why did you make the ZKB-2R your weapon of choice for writing your thesis?
I type on it reasonably quickly, and it's fairly silent - I work in an open office, so even just tactile Alps are rather loud. Plus, it has a very accessible layout - although I type faster on my M0116 and Pingmaster, their layouts are just weird enough that it makes a difference in the long run. Besides, it's already quite heavily used, so a bit more use won't matter - I try to keep my best boards a bit pristine. Also, it's got great desk presence. I SO WANT a NIB ZKB-2.
I don't have a ZKB-2 or ZKB-2R, but I have a close relative, the Zenith 163-73. I am typing on it now. This one has been my most successful "click mod" to date. I installed top housings and click leaves from white (pine) Alps. With other Alps keyboards that I have converted from linear or tactile to clicky, I have usually ended up with some flaky switches (intermittently unresponsive or chattering), but all the hybridized switches in the Zenith 163-73 work perfectly.
The layout on the Zenith 163-173 also works well for me. I've installed an internal Orihalcon-Soarer converter along with a panel-mount micro-USB connector, and I've done my customary remapping to a HHKB-esque configuration. The split Right Shift is perfect for the Fn key and the supersized Right Bracket serves as the Backspace (Fn+Right Bracket = Right Bracket).
I like typing on the modified Zenith, but in retrospect I think it might have been better to install lighter springs -- I kept the yellow Alps springs, which feel somewhat heavy. I would also like to improve the aesthetics of the board by acquiring a black label Zenith badge to replace the "tree logo" emblem. (However, you were ahead of me advertising for a black badge, so you get first pick if one turns up).
I also don't really need any of the keys outside of the main typing area, and I am most accustomed to using a 60% form factor keyboard. You have exhorted me to bite the bullet and take up soldering again, so I intend to build my own 60% Alps board based on Hasu's Alps64 PCB. I am thinking of using clickified orange Alps for the build.