Keyboard Switch Lubing Vs Filming What You Actually Need

The Lube Versus Film Debate Is Mostly Marketing. Here's What I Actually Do.

Every switch maker on the planet wants you to believe their factory lube is perfect and their housing tolerances are machined to aerospace standards. Then you buy a $200 board, press the spacebar once, and hear a rattle that sounds like a loose marble in a tin cup. The hobby's answer is always the same: lube it, film it, or both. I've spent the better part of a decade and roughly 40 boards figuring out which part of that advice actually matters. Short version: one of them fixes real problems, and the other is mostly a $10 placebo that makes you feel like a builder.

I'm Marta, I run ClackCabin, and every board I review gets 30 days as my actual daily driver before I write a word. My soldering iron has seen more use than most people's ovens. The version of this debate I care about is the one you can do at your kitchen table with a $12 brush kit, not the one that requires a $300 switch opener and a clean-room obsession.

How I Tested This (For Six Years)

I don't do the thing where I lube 10 switches, type for 20 minutes, and declare a winner. My bench has a force curve rig I built from a digital scale and a 3D-printed jig, and I log dB readings at 40 cm for every board. But the real test is the 30-day daily driver rule. I've run lubed boards, filmed boards, lubed-and-filmed boards, and stock boards through the same gauntlet: on-call pages at 2 a.m., 5,000-word writing days, and the occasional rage quit in a ranked game.

The numbers that matter: a lubed switch typically drops 3 to 5 dB of ping and clack compared to stock. A filmed switch reduces measured wobble by 0.1 to 0.2 mm on loose housings. Those are real, measurable changes. The question is whether you need them.

Lubing: The Only Step That Actually Matters

Here's the thing nobody on YouTube tells you: factory lube is mostly a marketing checkbox. Some brands, like Gateron's newer KS-9 batches, do a decent job. Most don't. I've opened brand-new switches that had a single microscopic dot of grease on the spring and nothing on the rails. That's not lubrication, that's a rumor.

I've been using Krytox 205g0 for six years now, and it's the only lube I trust. A 2ml jar costs $12, and it's lasted me through roughly 40 boards and hundreds of switch rebuilds. The cost per day works out to about half a cent. The difference it makes is not subtle: the first switch you lube properly, you'll hear it. The ping disappears, the bottom-out gets deeper, and the return stroke gets a quiet, damped thock instead of a metallic ring.

The catch is that it takes time. A full board of 70 switches takes me about two hours now, but it was four hours when I started. You have to open every switch, brush a thin layer on the housing rails, lube the spring ends, and reassemble. Miss a spot and you'll hear it forever. I keep a spreadsheet of every board I've built, and the ones I rushed are the ones I remember for the wrong reasons.

One honest limit: I don't track lube prices day to day, so I won't pretend to know if Krytox drops to $10 next week. What I know is that $12 for a jar that lasts years is the best value per dollar in this entire hobby.

Filming: The Placebo That Sometimes Works

Switch films are thin plastic shims that sit between the top and bottom housing halves. The marketing says they reduce wobble and tighten the sound. The reality is that they only help on switches with genuinely loose housings.

I've measured wobble with calipers on dozens of switch types. Cherry and JWK switches have tight enough tolerances that films do nothing measurable. I've filmed a full board of Cherry MX Reds and the calipers showed zero change. Zero. That's not a rounding error, that's a waste of an hour.

Gateron and Outemu are a different story. Their housings are looser, and I've measured a genuine 0.2mm wobble reduction with Deskeys films. That's the difference between a keycap that feels solid and one that rocks under your finger. If you're building with budget switches, films are worth the $10 for a pack of 120. If you're using anything from a premium brand, save your money.

The one exception is TX Films, which are thicker and better for reviving ancient switches from the 1990s. I've used them to bring old Cherry and Alps switches back to life, and the extra thickness compensates for decades of wear. For modern switches, they're overkill.

When You Need Both (And When You Need Neither)

The internet will tell you that lubing and filming is mandatory for every build. That's nonsense. I've run boards completely stock that sounded better than half the "custom" builds I've heard at meetups. The Gateron KS-9 switches that ship in the Keychron V-series are a perfect example. They come factory-lubed from a machine that actually does a decent job, and the housings are tight enough that films do nothing. I've had a Keychron V1 on my desk for eight months now, stock switches, and it still sounds clean at keystroke 480,000.

The rule I've settled on after all these years: lube everything you plan to keep. It's the single highest-impact mod in the hobby, and the cost is a few hours of your evening. Film only if you measured wobble and found it, or if you're using budget switches known for loose housings. If a switch doesn't wobble, a film is a piece of plastic doing nothing.

The Stabilizer Problem Nobody Mentions

Here's the dirty secret: the spacebar and shift keys are where all the noise lives, and no amount of switch lubing fixes a rattly stabilizer. I've measured stabs on boards that cost $200 with rattles that registered 68 dB at 40 cm. That's louder than the switches themselves. The fix is the same Krytox 205g0, applied to the wire where it meets the plastic housing, plus a tiny drop of GPL 105 oil on the wire ends.

This is the mod that makes the biggest audible difference, and it takes 15 minutes. I've had boards that sounded like a coffee grinder on the spacebar and after 15 minutes of stab work, they sounded like they cost three times as much. If you're only going to do one thing, do your stabilizers first.

What I'd Tell a Friend

If you're building your first board, buy a $12 jar of Krytox 205g0 and a $5 brush kit. Lube your switches over a weekend, do your stabilizers, and skip the films. The films are a solution looking for a problem on modern switches. If you're using budget Gaterons or Outemus and you feel wobble under your fingers, grab a pack of Deskeys films for $10 and measure the difference yourself.

The honest bottom line: lubing is the only mandatory mod in this hobby, and it costs less than a fast-food lunch per board. Films are a niche fix for a specific problem, and most people don't have that problem. I've been doing this for six years, and my daily driver is a board with lubed switches, filmed stabilizers, and no switch films. It sounds better than boards that cost twice as much and had all three treatments. That's not a coincidence, that's the difference between doing the work and buying the marketing.