It felt great to personally fix something I not only relied on, but loved. It took time and I smelled up our apartment, but I did manage to swap out the switch and get my A key working again. Once I felt confident, I turned to my malfunctioning keyboard.
To gain the necessary soldering experience, I ripped apart an old alarm clock and practiced removing and re-soldering some of the connections on the circuit board inside it. I called the manufacturer, and a very nice customer-service representative mailed me instructions for replacing the switch at home, along with five new switches. The soldering iron also came in handy recently when the A key on my main work keyboard, a Matias with 'silent' switches (they're not perfectly silent, as my colleagues can attest) stopped working. Meanwhile, I've started accumulating parts for a new Windows keyboard.
I'm waiting for the custom wooden case to arrive in the mail. In all, I've spent more than $750 on the keyboard parts and associated equipment for putting everything together. My girlfriend gave me a soldering iron, and I ordered solder. I also bought some lube to make the switches move up and down more smoothly. There are companies that make all sorts of custom USB cables, and I picked up one of those, too. From there, I was able to find keycaps that fit the Alps-style switches and MacOS, and I chose a compatible printed circuit board and plate to sit below the switches.
