Guides / Running a Group Buy

Vetting a Machine Shop Before You Send the Files

September 21, 2026

Any competent machine shop can cut aluminium to your drawing. Far fewer can hand you 180 cases that all look like the sample, on a date, packed so they arrive unscratched.

The difference is not equipment. It is whether they have done this particular kind of work before. Here is how to find out in one conversation.

The questions that actually separate shops

“What keyboard work have you done?” The best question, and the simplest. Cases, plates, weights, how many runs. A shop that has made cases will start talking about anodising batches and cosmetic scrap without being prompted. A shop that has not will talk about tolerances, which it can hold, and which was never the risk.

“Who does your anodising?” In house, or a named anodiser they have used for years, or a vague answer. The vague answer is the one that should worry you. Finishing is where runs slip and where colour goes wrong, and a shop that cannot name its anodiser has not thought about your actual risk.

“Can you batch the top and bottom halves together?” If this question surprises them, they have not finished parts that sit against each other. The reason it matters is in how anodised colour is really decided.

“What is your largest work envelope?” A full size case needs the travel. Ask before you find out that your TKL does not fit on their machines.

“What overage do you plan for cosmetic scrap?” A real number means real experience. “We will make exactly what you order” means they have not made cosmetic aluminium at volume, whatever else they have made.

“How many setups is this part?” Asked after they have seen the model. A specific answer means somebody looked at your geometry. It often surfaces an expensive feature you did not know you had drawn.

“Can you repeat this colour in a year?” You may want a round two. The honest answer is “we can get close, and we will make a new sample against the old one”. Anyone who promises an exact match is telling you they have not done it.

Answers that should make you walk away

“Flawless, no problem.” Nobody who has finished cosmetic aluminium says this.

“We can do it in three weeks.” Possible for machining, not possible including a prototype round and finishing. Either they are not planning to prototype, or they have not asked their anodiser.

“Send the files and we will get back to you” with no questions at all. A shop that has read your package properly will have at least one question, because every package has at least one ambiguity.

A price far below the others with no explanation of why. Sometimes it is genuine, because their machines are idle or their stock is cheap. Often it is because they have not priced the cosmetic standard, and you will meet that difference again in month five.

Compare quotes properly

Ask every shop for the same breakdown, at the same quantities:

• Machining, per unit
• Finishing, per unit
• Tooling and fixtures, one time
• Prototype, separately
• Packing
• Freight, or ex works if you arrange it

Quotes that look wildly different usually agree closely once the lines are matched up, and the differences that survive are the ones worth asking about. Getting three prices that cannot be compared is a wasted round and it is nearly always caused by an incomplete package rather than by the shops.

Things that are not signals

A big factory. Capacity is not the constraint on a 180 unit run. A large shop may treat you as a nuisance order and schedule you behind its real customers.

A slick website. It correlates with marketing spend, not with cosmetic control.

Photographs of somebody else’s keyboards. Ask whether they made them.

A certification. ISO 9001 means the shop documents its processes. It says nothing about whether it can hold a colour across two anodising batches, which is your actual risk.

The thing that matters most

Find out whether they will say no.

A shop that declines a date it cannot hold, declines a tolerance it cannot repeat and tells you a feature in your model is expensive is worth more than a cheaper shop that agrees to everything. Agreement is free. Delivery is not.

If you would rather not run that search yourself, send us the package and we will put it in front of shops that have made cases before.

Frequently asked questions

Keep reading

• The End of US De Minimis and What It Does to a Keyboard Group Buy
• Inspecting a Keyboard Case: Flatness, Rock and Cosmetic Checks