oh. in that case, the soft material used for holee mod will not stick well to a lubed stem, and will detach from its location after a while (which might cause wierd feels and sound when this happens)

in general, the better practice is, it's better to do it right, then test it to make sure everything works properly, before full assembly. this is a habit that can save us a lot of time.

(previously i rushed a soldered build, including sticking individual switch pads on pcb, only to find out after it's done that its pcb did not work at all lol it took me hours to desolder, prepare and replace a new pcb with the same mod, resolder, etc. if i chose to spend 5 minutes to test the pcb with tweezers, none of this would happen in the first place )

lubes from keys.my are ok. in terms of lube, it's better to try out more options (e.g., for krytox gpl, they cover a wide range of viscosity) many attempt to make krytox gpl 205g0 as a go-to option, but in reality, it might not be a good option to achieve desired outcomes that you want.

yes it's relatively safer with IPA.

for switch pads, it's better to try them out and do comparisons with those without. the effects on key sound by this mod (and tape mod, corrected) was somewhat explained in this video:



yeah, mixed results.

note that the video was based on the original mod, i.e., pe foam for packaging (less densed pe). there was no obvious highlight in the explanation about effects based on different materials, and density. (currently we have switch pads made of at least eva, ixpe, and poron)

after a brief use of about a week or two on a hot-swap at stock, gateron cj is ok in general imo:

1. it has pom-based bottom housing, hence it sounds like durock piano when bottomed out;
2. they're with lesser stem wobbles, compared to ks-3 series;
3. the key travels are smooth at stock, mainly due to lubrication at factory.

note that the switch i tested is gateron cj. there is also a newer one called gateron box cj.

since gateron pro series, their switches are getting ok in general, with lesser but different levels of stem wobbles. (gateron pro/cap/x/cj/oil king are some examples; finally they have done something to catch up) for those who prefer stem wobbles, there is always ks-3 series.

if you go beyond performance, these new gateron switches are usually at the higher side.

--
a quick note on hpe sliders from PangHu: since it has a longer stem pole, not all switches are compatible with it. (i.e., key travel distance are shortened too much) previously i tested with jwick black. it turned out that all jwick/jwk switches have relatively shallow wells. hence it's better to be used with switches that have the standard well depth, e.g., cherry mx, gateron.