Seeing that you're already interested in building a custom keyboard there's not much else to say about why you should build a custom keyboard, but I'll go ahead and give a brief summary, you're welcome to skip to the end for a list of stores.
People build custom keyboards for a plethora of reasons, all of them valid, but some of the most frequent reasons can be summarized as follows.
- because I want to
- you like to solder
- you like a specific type of switch, how it feels, looks and or sounds
- keycaps sets for whatever aesthetic or mood you're feeling like
- non-standard layouts
- open source software
- programmability
- collecting
and the list could go on and on.
For me I like custom keyboards for non-standard layouts and finding my next, favorite switch type and I just generally enjoy soldering.
This isn't mean to be an exhaustive explanation of layout as there's too many to list. My preferred layout to type on is a staggered split design, but some of the most popular layouts are the 60% TKL (80% ten keyless) Those two layouts are generally going to be the cheapest to outfit when it comes to base keycap sets.
Other layouts that tend to be popular are 65%*, 70%, 1800 and 75%. So far we've been talking about the standard, staggered layout, but there's some other types as well. Ortholinear and Columnar are two popular, non-standard switch row/column layouts. An ortho keeb will have a uniform, grid like layout, whereas a columnar layout will keep the columns uniform and stagger the rows.
*(where percentage is the percentage of key coverage compared to a full sized keyboard)
To keep things simple for this build we're using Cherry MX style switches. There's more or less 3 styles of switches, Clicky, Tactile and Linear. Popular clicky switches that you've likely heard of are the venerable Cherry Blues, for the tactiles there's the Cherry Browns and for the linears there's Cherry Red.
I myself prefer tactile switches over clicky and linear styles. Specifically silent tactile switches such as the Haimu Whisper which is currently my favorite followed by the Yok Purple Trash Pandas.
One thing to keep in mind when it comes to switches is their spring weight, travel and actuation points. Usually you'll see switches have a 4mm travel with an actuation point somewhere near the middle of travel. You can find data sheets with actuation graphs charting the actuation travel, force, bottoming out travel, force and then the return travel and force.
Continuing the trend, like everything before them there's a bunch of different types of keycap profiles. You're probably most familiar with the Cherry profile, but there's also OEM, SA, DSA, XDA and MT3 to keep the list from growing too long. https://i.redd.it/kld2wynulsq51.png
I'm not going to touch on profiles all that much here, stuff like SA and MT3, Cherry, OEM are what's called a "Sculpted Profile" since each row of keycaps are sculpted specifically for that row, keep this in mind for later. From there you have different hight profiles, SA being a high profile and the Cherry being more or less low profile. Then you have the uniform profiles like DSA, XDA.
There's also the different kind of plastics, ABS, PBT are the two most common plastics. ABS keycaps tend to be the cheapest with PBT keycaps being more expensive. https://switchandclick.com/abs-vs-pbt-keycaps-whats-the-difference/
ABS keycaps feel smooth and will develop a shiny look and feel on them as they're used over time whereas PBT tends to be more durable in that regard and hold their textured surface and look much longer and like all things in custom keebs, it's ultimately person choice as to which is better.
When it comes to the colorway of the caps and the legends there's doubleshot, dye-sub, laser etched and painted as well as a few other methods.
Dobuleshot means the cap goes through two different injection mold steps where two different colors of plastic are injected at different times, the legends on these caps will never wear off as they're molded into the switch.
Dye-sublimation is a printing technique and in the keycaps world is limited to PBT keycaps, a die is printed out on the plastic and heated up using a laser or some other method to cure the dye. It's quite durable and will wear little, but there's some drawbacks like limited color choices along with the requirement that the legend be a darker color than the keycap itself. Printed legends are like dye-sub but much less durable and will wear off with use.
Laser etching is usually used to create keycaps that have a backlit legend, they'll use an opaque plastic for the keycap and paint over it before etching the legend out to allow light through, you can usually feel the legend on the keycap after this is done.
https://switchandclick.com/double-shot-vs-dye-sub-keycaps-whats-the-difference/
Finally the last topic we'll cover here for keycaps is the set size and profile. If you're going to only be building 60% or TKL keebs then you're usually safe getting what's called a "Base Kit" If you end up going with a 65%, 75%, split keebs, ortho or columnar then you're going to most likely need to buy extras to fill out non-standard shift keys, space bars and other keycaps. When it comes to the keycap profiles, if you're running an ortho or columnar keeb then you're most likely going to want a uniform keycap profile to make things easier on yourself when it comes to typing as well as your wallet.
For this workshop you'll need to provide your own Keycaps as well as Switches, of which you'll need at least 87, so just order a bag of 90 to be safe. Switch mods are outside of the scope of this workshop, but you're more than welcome to look into filming and lubing your switches in advanced if that's something you'd like to do.
The workshop comes with the Cannon Keys Practice TKL keyboard kit and Cherry Clip In Stabilizers.
If you'd like to perform some basic modifications during the build you can look at the Stabilizer Band-Aid mod which will help dull the sharp sound of stabilizers bottoming out on the PCB. https://switchandclick.com/how-to-mod-your-stabilizers-band-aid-clip-and-lube/
There's also switch tripods if you want to play around with trying to tune the sound of the keyboard. https://cannonkeys.com/products/cannonkeys-switch-tripods
Here's a list of some of my favorite stores. When buying things for the workshop keep in mind delivery dates as with custom keyboards it's not uncommon for stores to run group buys.
Novel Keys is one of my personal favorites, I've bought a lot from them.
Cannon Keys is a fantastic vendor and is the maker of the kit we're building.
Pimp My Keyboard has donated keycap sets to Boiselan in the past as prizes.
https://drop.com/mechanical-keyboards/home
Drop is a pretty big player in the custom keeb world, albeit with a bit of a controversial history. Be sure to only buy their ready to ship stock.
Great seller, I bought an sp50 case for my keeb.io Nyquist from them, it took about a month to get to me though.
A great seller based out of China, have purchased from them before and shipping wasn't bad, I want to say it took about 2 - 3 weeks for me to get my order.
Keeb.io is another one of my personal favorites, I've bought more keyboard kits from them than I have any other vendor.
Tai-Hao is a large keycap manufacturer based in Taiwan, be aware that if you order from them it might take a while to get your keycap set depending on your shipping choice.
Although ThocStock isn't a store, it is a great aggregator for different stores.