Modding the Filco Majestouch Tenkeyless

I've recently made an investment and purchased a Filco Majestouch 2 Tenkeyless, blue switch edition. It was a toss-up between that and the HappyHacker and I decided I like the arrow keys too much to let go. KeyboardCo have exclusive distribution rights here in the UK so I got mine from there. Next day delivery, top notch service.

Just above it is my Logitech Wave; quite a nifty design but the quality isn't amazing and the keys started to stick after about 6 months. Not bad for £20 though.

The Filco is quite a pricey beast at £114 but I figured as I'm typing away every day, it will definitely pay itself off.

Shortly after I showed it off to everyone (who cared and had any interest in keyboards), my friend decided to get a full sized one from WASD keyboards. For those who don't know and haven't clicked the link yet, WASD sell mechanical keyboards, but what makes them different from the competition though is that they let you fully customise your keycaps!

As WASD are based on the other side of the pond, I decided to piggy back on his order and get some custom keys and some dampeners (at the bottom of the link there is a noise comparison between with and without o-rings).

Now that little baby on the bottom left is a keycap puller that came free with the WASD keyboard but you can get it separately too. Very nice of them to include that and it will definitely come in handy if one day you decide to customise your keycaps or maybe just clean your keyboard.

Starting with the Esc key and the qwerty row.

Nice and easy. Now I heard that the bigger keys are quite different and it's quite easy to break them if you pull them out like a madman. I decided to consult the infinite wisdom of the Internet, most precisely Youtube, for some advice. Stumbled upon this video which was most helpful! You might want to mute the music though. And so off the big keys went.

There are only 4 long keys on this: the 3 visible ones and the backspace. After about 1.5 hours, all the keys were dampened. And here it is in its full glory:

The picture doesn't show it very well but my 'Windows' keys, or 'Meta' keys as I prefer to call them now, have a Tux on them.

I must say, the dampened keys are gonna take a while to get used to but they are much quieter than before. Needless to say the feel is amazing and it's definitely one of the best keyboards I've typed on so far and I've owned quite a few (Logitech Wave/G15, countless scissor and laptop keyboards as well as stock DELL keyboards). If your job involves a lot of tapping away, this will definitely improve your typing comforts.

For more reference, I urge you to read:

• the Overclock.net Mechanical Keyboard Guide

• the Elite Keyboards FAQ

And if you just want a chat, sign up to the GeekHack forums.