Keyboard Build

My last work station upgrade post (pt. 4) was about getting a new keyboard that was actually custom-made. I had a love for mechanical keyboards for more than ten years, but last year was my first foray into lubed switches which make a huge difference. In the past ten years, I’ve also graduated from first liking clicky switches (Cherry MX Blues on my Razer Black Widow), tactile switches (Cherry MX Browns on my Pok3r 60% keyboard) to finally linear switches (Cherry MX Reds on my Corsair K70RGB to Gateron Reds on my Keychron K3v2 to Zeal Tealio v2 switches on my custom-built KBD75v2). That KBD75v2 was extremely special to me not because of the cost (although it was a pretty penny), but because it felt so much better than all of my other keyboards combined. It really made typing a pleasure and even a year after, if I know I have something long to type out, I sometimes just want to wait until I get to that keyboard instead of typing something out on my laptop. It was filmed and lubed professionally and even though it was used, I couldn’t tell at all.

When I bought that KBD75v2, it was because I was slightly impatient. November of 2020 I ordered a new keyboard that was supposed to revolutionize keyboard building for beginners and would make things so much more accessible to novices. This was the Glorious GMMK Pro. I remember hearing about it on a stream from Black Friday and was blown away by how cool it looked, the little knob at the top right corner, and the price. It was about $150 (no switches or keycaps included) but that was a bargain in comparison with other boards at the time. Plus it was a hot-swappable board which meant that once I decided on switches, I wouldn’t need to learn how to solder them and it would be easy to potentially switch out switches for different keys. I placed the order in November but it was just a preorder with the delivery date not being until the following summer. Less than a month after placing the preorder, I was on r/mechmarket looking up different switches and of course, it led me to look at prebuilt used mechanical keyboards. That’s when I saw the filmed and lubed KBD75v2 with the Tealio switches. It was a decent price and it meant that I would have that instant gratification without needing to wait more than six months before being able to make my own keyboard.

And it’s been great. But last August, the keyboard came and it was back to the research for switches. I was already leaning toward something linear like the Gateron Black Inks and I also liked the look of 80082 keycaps which I put in groupbuy order for. So when I saw that they made 8008 Inks, I also preordered those. They came in fairly quickly and I was super excited and got some Krytox 205g0 lube as well as a stem holder, keycap opener, film, and a brush for lubing. The only thing missing was my new keycaps. I already have some Godspeed GMK keycaps but they’re sitting nicely on my KBD75v2. I have some MoDo Light clones from Amazon and they’ll have to do since there are so many delays with my GMK buys. (I also have GMK Rainy Day coming sometime in 2022). So I have everything I need to finally build my long-awaited keyboard. So that means I got started right away right? Wrong.

When I finally acquired everything, there was about a week left until school started and I was already freaking out about creating new curriculum for a STEAM class I didn’t know I would be doing. I was also getting my classroom ready so that took a while. I had the delusion that I would bring my supplies to school and build my keyboard there. I even went ahead and brought my case, switches, and all the lubing supplies to school. They sat in a box on my desk for a few weeks until I gave up and brought it back to sit in a corner of my office. This was August/September and it just sat there ever since. I even put a “to-do” in my Things app and Google Tasks. Nope. I brought it out again for Thanksgiving break, but we only really had three days off so that didn’t happen. In between, I even reached out to someone I knew who built keyboards because I was so busy but he never got back to me. I guess I’ll do it myself… eventually.

So finally during winter break, after our Santa Barbara El Capitan Canyon trip, I got serious. I forgot everything I looked up about lubing before. I followed a tutorial by Taeha Types and it was easy enough. It took me about an hour or more to disassemble about 90 of my keycaps and another four hours or so over two days to film and lube them. I can’t tell if filming made a huge difference, but it definitely took a lot more time than I thought. I think if I ever had to only lube switches, it would take 75% of the time because the film was so finicky. When I finally finished with the switches, I was so excited that I almost forgot about the stabilizers. This is when things went downhill a little. I busted out the GMMK Pro and disassembled it a little bit in order to check out the “GOAT” stabilizers. I didn’t know that they would be a little lubed already even though it clearly stated it. And since it’s also clear that I’m lazy, I knew that I should probably lube them but didn’t want to completely disassemble the stabs. So what did I do? I took some of the Krytox and shoved the brush up into the stabs in order to lube them. Even more… Looking back at reviews of the GMMK Pro, the biggest complaint is about the inconsistent and sometimes overlubing of the stabilizers. And I just added more. I installed some switches and keycaps to those keys to test them out… sticky. Of course. But did I do anything else? Nope, I was already too excited to try out the keyboard that I just finished building the whole keyboard, sticky stabs and all. The backspace is the worst because if I really push down on it, it will stick for a full second before slowly coming back up. Thankfully the spacebar is fine. But it’s just that backspace key that mostly drives me crazy. One day I will fix it - hopefully sooner rather than later because if I spent this much time building my keyboard, I should really make it perfect. Oh well. We’ll see what happens now.

Overall I’m really happy with the keyboard (despite the stabilizers) and I would totally build another one - as long as I don’t need to solder. It would be cool to learn, but I also don’t want to buy all that extra stuff for something that I won’t use much. Maybe I’d be able to borrow an iron from one of the science teachers and then I’ll try it out. But yes, I think that this keyboard should stay at my school because it’s fairly quieter than my KBD75v2 but I also like it so much that maybe I want to keep it at home. In any case, it’ll be nice to not have to carry around an extra keyboard every day to school. The volume knob is great though. People say that it’s a gimmick, but that was the biggest thing that I missed from my Corsair - a volume knob and a mute button which this both is. I think 75% is definitely the perfect size for me but I wouldn’t turn away a full-sized keyboard that’s a little more compact like this one. I don’t know what’s next in the world of keyboards, but I’m eagerly anticipating some new keycaps. After this though. I’ll be done because this is an expensive hobby. *Narrator: He was not done with keyboards.