I am going to do a complete take-apart soon and want a good lube. I am considering this DuPont unless something better comes along:
So I finally got around to revisiting the messed up Orange switches and testing the DuPont lubrication. Lubing the sliders, top housing, click plates and the switch plates of cleaned switches seems to yield the best results. The switches are much smoother and no longer feel as scratchy, some of these formerly-tactile switches are now quasi-clicky, though, simply because the click plates have been bent out of shape over time. Sometime over the weekend I will try cleaning a few of the dirty Taobao blues and I will report back on what happens when I lube them in a similar fashion.
Interesting. I was only planning to do the sliders like the factory. Too much lube might remove the click. Plus using that much could affect the switch more over time. What DuPont lube did you use?
I certainly wouldn't lube the leaves, or if so, maybe only the arc of the leaf that contacts the slider for tactility, and that's only if one would want reduced tactility. I'd just lube the slider tabs that are typically lubed by Alps and the top housing since as we've found, the top housing is very essential to the feel of an Alps switch, creating huge differences between pine and bamboo housings, and given the fact that a bamboo switch with a pine housing will feel exactly like its pine counterparts.
I wouldn't lube the contact leaf spring (but it wouldn't hurt, since the contacts are contained) or the leaves, myself. Maybe an SKCM Brown leaf to see if it'd lighten the resistance at all, but eh.
In general, I don't like lubing Alps if they're in good condition. Sure, if you're restoring them, by all means; f they're that bad, do all you can to bring them back up to snuff, but I wouldn't touch switches that are in good condition. I would, however, lube the return springs on pingy linear switches though. I don't like Alps spring ping very much for the most part, so I've done that for every linear build I've made. Blues ping as well, but it's much less noticeable.
One interesting effect I had happen when I was cleaning and restoring my Acer KB101A, was that the click leaves in the SKCM Blues became mute after using a bit of alcohol to clean the grime between the rows and columns on the plate. Switches weren't dirty at all, I should add.
The isopropanol must've seeped into the switches and caused that effect. However, once it evaporated, everything was all good. It was 99% so it didn't take too long nor have too much risk of corroding anything, I think.