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Salvun.

Awesome thanks! I’ll add that to my list. Greatly appreciated.

Pizza Keyboards manufacture their keyboards in Italy. At least they did with their latest board, the Pizza 65 which had 2 rounds.

Tvrd Rad manufactures their boards in Serbia.

Arslock designed the The Fossil Fullsize and Palmetto 60% which were both made in the USA.

There's also a bunch of old school Korean makers that made their keyboards locally in Korea like OTD boards, LZ, Duck, Kmac etc.

Thank you so much for the reply. I will add these to my list as well. Greatly appreciated everyone.

Any reason you do not want a keyboard produced in china?

Yeah, I was gonna say Carolina Mech

You probably not search correctly. They use general pcb manufacturers because from a pcb standpoint, keyboards aren't any special. They are actually rather easy to make (unless you have any weird specific features).

OSHPark (based in the US) is probably the most well known PCB manufacturer for the general public outside of China. Most people would say they have superior quality but you pay more, obviously. The typical tradeoff.

PS: I'm sorry. I just noticed you asked for the entire keyboard manufacturing pipeline rather than PCBs only... I didn't delete this post because it might still interesting for OP...

P3D Store should be mentioned as well

Just was curious. Want something different and unique that would stand out from the crowd. Each time I go to meets its normally the same thing you see over and over just with different variations. Every now and then I come across boards like Keycult and even the Frogs in which you can tell the level of quality is different. I am into craftmanship. Even the level of detail that go into stacked layer cases from Switch Couture, SM keyboards, IV works, P3d I have been amazed by. Maybe because its different or I am just not getting the itch no more over the past few years. Lots of players in the game now and so much too choose from but they are all looking and sounding the same. Time for custom ergo builds? lol IDK.

Keycult now manufacture in the US, and since they decided to do that, quality has taken a nosedive it would seem.

Interesting. hmmmm

This is good information. Maybe I should go old school heheh research custom cases and match them up to a good quality PCB. That would bring out some uniqueness to my lineup.

Many coveted boards that have very unique design language and aesthetics are still ultimately ‘made in China’ because they have a very robust CNC market.

> Every now and then I come across boards like Keycult and even the Frogs in which you can tell the level of quality is different.

The thing you're noticing is probably the quality and attention to detail in the design process of the keyboard, not the manufacturing part.

A mill in China and a mill in the USA will do the job equally well. Any CNC machine that is capable of milling a keyboard will do the job pretty much exactly as good as the next one. The finishing process (mediablast, anodization, coating etc.) is what you'll notice most across different keyboard manufacturers.

That is true, the level of quality is definitely different. Maybe it’s just the tiers I am looking at and not necessarily where they are manufactured from I should be concentrating on. Budget vs mid vs high end tiers and the boards they are custom built from ground up.

Definitely. When you're buying a custom keyboard you have to keep in mind that it's not all black and white. Expensive doesn't mean better, more complex doesn't mean better and manufactured outside of China doesn't mean better.

Take your time picking out a keyboard and make sure it's coming from a reputable makers that has made good keyboards in the past. Some great examples are Geonworks, westfoxtrot, ai03, TGR, Vertex and SingaKBD. The board you're buying doesn't necessarily have to come from a well known maker, but it really helps if you're new and can't recognize good projects yourself quite yet. Even if you find something from a less known/new maker, you can always ask around and see what other hobbyists here on Reddit or Discord think of it. Getting a few opinions before you dive into something is always a good idea, especially since keyboards are a big investment in terms of time (if you're joining a GB) and money.

Thank you so much for the advice. Greatly appreciated

Awesome thank you so much. I have over 12 boards and it seems like I am losing the itch. Started off with budget boards, tried a Frog TKL and recently got a Therav2 and am like meh. Was going to see what the Mode hype was but now not sure if I should jump in.

>Each time I go to meets its normally the same thing you see over and over just with different variations.

This is the point at which you need to decide whether to let your own creativity loose.

If YOU design your own keyboard(s), you can make them as different from everything else out there as you want.
You don't necessarily have to design everything from scratch either.
You can buy some portions outright, and have other portions custom built.

The keyboards in the pic below both use off-the-shelf KPRepublic 60% cases, but are a night and day departure from the original keyboards those cases were designed to house.
I designed those layouts myself, for my own use, in two very specific locations.
I had plates cut, to mimic the mounting of the originals, but with dramatically different layouts, then hand-wired everything together, using Elite-C controllers.

https://preview.redd.it/yzertqdmpdqa1.jpeg?width=1226&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=e8810befd9f9c4f35c7df7172df5b71b16d21cef

This is awesome! The Ergo/Ortho community also is so inspiring. Totally on a different level.

Keebwerk manufactures in Germany last I checked

Ducky, Vortex, Costar make boards in Taiwan. Topre (realforce and hhkb) is made in Japan. Leopold is made in Korea.

Geon's Frog is made in China btw.

TGR's newest boards are made in Malaysia I believe.

Some of my hobbies are folding knives, mechanical watches, and keyboards. In all of those hobbies, Chinese manufacturing produces some incredibly well made items that dominate the market. I totally support anyone who wants to buy products elsewhere, but anyone who thinks that Chinese manufacturing is inherently sub-par is delusional.

interesting lol this whole time I thought the Frog was made in Korea. Maybe because its their entry board of the lineup?

Thanks for the reply.

Geon has a factory in Korea, he produced the F1 and F2 in house, Frog was outsourced to Korea because the factory is too busy.

I agree. I'd love it if there was a totally British made board (if there is, I'd love to know), but some of the Chinese machining work is very high quality.