Gateron Root Beer Float

On a bright and sunny day in the 1960s, the playground is teeming with life as the air rings with the joyous laughter and playful screams of children. You spend your day basking in the thrills of swings that take you higher and higher, seesaws that bounce you up and down, and monkey bars that challenge your climbing skills. As you look around, you see some kids busy with hopscotch, jump rope, or tag, while others are having a blast on the merry-go-round. As the sun begins to set, you and your buddies head to the nearby soda shop for a refreshing treat. The classic root beer float is always your go-to drink, with its foamy root beer mixed with creamy vanilla ice cream making for a delightful, refreshing blend. You all sit outside on the patio, savoring the deliciousness, and reflecting on the great time you had on the playground, feeling happy and content with the perfect ending to a fun-filled day.

The Root Beer Float pairs the same wonderful housing material combination of Ink bottom and Milky top which are used in the Cream Sodas. However, with this design we introduce a new Ink material long pole tactile stem into the mix to spice things up a bit. This stem is the first of its kind and only the 2nd ever Ink material stem used outside of the North Poles. This material is harder than POM and when combined with the new longer pole gives a nice crisp bottom out on the keypress. This is accomplished while retaining the smoothness we love from Ink material and there is no slip stick on the polished Ink Oil King style bottom housing mold.

This time I also opted for a slightly different spring in order to emphasize the tactility of the switch. While the new gold plated dual stage spring does have a lighter bottom out at 58g, it allows for the nice medium-heavy bump of the switch to shine with the peak tactility coming in around the same as the bottom out force of the Cream Sodas. This results in a typing feel that is more aggressive than the Runner switches but a more comfortable typing experience vs other more sharper tactiles. It really is a nice sweet spot.

Lastly, another popular request for Cream Sodas was for an unlubed version. While I understand the demand and necessity in the upper echelon of enthusiasts, having an unlubed variant was not only counter to the design intentions of Cream Sodas but also more difficult to achieve due to splitting SKUs. However, the opportunity was realized here with the Root Beer Floats due to the simple nature of boutique tactile switches. Each of us have our own desired way of tuning our tactiles to our feel preferences and it was a priority of mine to make sure that this was taken into account for this design. As such, Root Beer Floats come as a completely unlubed sandbox for each of us to tune to our heart’s desire.

Switch Specs:

• Tactile
• Milky Top Housing
• Gateron Long Pole Ink Material Stem
• Ink Bottom Housing
• 58g Bottom Out
• 62g Tactile Peak
• 22mm Gold Plated Long Spring
• 3.5mm Travel