Thanks kakan. I think you nailed exactly what I should be looking into.
That being said, I'm going to move forward with plan b. At some point this morning, I decided that I need to build a keyboard for these unique caps. That probably sounds stupid but I'll explain my rationale at the end. Now, I already have an alps pcb and plate. I'm going to use the case I had picked out for my Xerox project. I think it will look really cool with the caps. Just need to figure out how to fashion some lights between the plate and pcb, but I have some ideas for that.
I wanted to shed a little bit of light on what I'm doing to modify the Matias bottom housings. As I showed in the earlier photos, there are some really inconveniently placed pieces of plastic right where the switchplate should go. Since Matias are simplified alps style, it doesn't interfere with the thin little wimpy switchplate that these switches come with.
I'm using wire clippers to snip off the bits of plastic. But usually that's not enough, so I also have to take a dremel to it; in order to make as much space as possible. Only then does it fit with the switchplate from these green alps. Here's a video of the process. It's tedious work but hopefully it pays off in the end.
People are probably wondering why I'm going through so much trouble for such little payoff. I guess it's because it's the creative aspect of the hobby that appeals to me. I own a lot of boards and do a lot of weird project, but in reality, I use the same keyboard 99% of the time. I have fun trying out different things even if they don't work out (and a lot of times they don't). So here's another experiment. Hopefully I'll learn some new things and maybe, just maybe, it'll actually turn out to be as cool as it is in my head.
