Hello all! I grew up cutting my teeth on an 8086 with an IBM Compatible keyboard with the huge Return key, but it wasn't until just a month ago that I returned to the land of mechanical keyboards. On the suggestion of a friend, I purchased this Ducky Shine Zero
and fell in love with the clacky Cherry MX Blue feel and sound. I had the disease. Since then, I've been hanging out on IRC channels, talking to fellow enthusiasts, reading everything I could find on here, Reddit, DA, just scouring all the websites I could come across to learn more about ABS vs PBT, switch types and histories, what's wrong with a non-standard bottom row, keycap profiles, you name it. A week ago while browsing Craigslist I came across a man selling his Leopold, "barely used" were his words, and picked it up on the cheap. Well, the thing had been regularly used for some time, including noticeable wear on the keycaps, and the most gunk I have ever seen underneath a keyboard. I had just purchased a WASD keycap puller, so I got to work. I took this:
to this:
with the help of guides I had read here and elsewhere about denture tabs, pillowcases, and dryer cycles. In the future I hope to learn to mod my keyboards to clip my cherry stabs, lubricate sliders and springs, solder and desolder switches, and maybe eventually put a custom board together with some help from my friends and family, and of course the community
Right now blues are my favorite, but I really like the feel and sound of greens based on my WASD switch tester as well as the clears (although they feel a little stiff, which I've heard from others is their only complaint.) I hope to soon try ALPS/Matias, Topre, and all the other switches out there. Talking to my close friends about this hobby outnerds even the nerdiest of them, so I must be doing something right.
Thanks for having me!
