We had a little miscommunication with our "shipping department" and accidentally sent out some individual refills instead of full tins. Don't worry, we are sending out new shipments but it may take us several days to identify all of the orders and get them processed.
You don't need to do anything.
You'll get a shipping notice when the second package ships.
No need to email, we know we screwed up. Rubbing it in just means we are spending time answering your email instead of correcting the problem ;)
October Shipping Update
over 7 years ago
– Thu, Oct 04, 2018 at 12:58:59 AM
First shipments are in the mail!
Well that's good news right?! Still plugging away on grips but things are coming along. Fortunately our fulfillment system is very efficient so we should start moving more quickly from this point. Right now we have shipped orders that contain only brass pens, just because those parts were finished first. No reason to sit around! Aluminum parts are getting tumbled and ultrasonic cleaned this week and will go out for nickel plating. We are most of the way through that process already.
53 Backers about to get happy ;)
We should be finished with machining in about two weeks if our luck holds out. However, Mr. Murphy is still with us. We were supposed to start shipping last week...but...our compressor decided to die on us. Unfortunately almost every machine/process requires compressed air so we were down for a few days until the techs could get out and look at the problem. One of the bearings (bearings again) on the cooling fan motor broke down and seized. They ended up disabling the fan circuit to keep the controller from alarming out, and we are using an external fan to blow across the cooling element. It's limp-along mode but it will work until they can ship us a new motor.
Red lights are because the CNC machines alarmed out after the compressor seized up :(
In other random news, I've been working on a pen holder for quite a while. We pulled some first prototypes of of the mill today but I can't decide which style I like. We took a poll in the shop but feel free to weigh in. Do you prefer they style on the left or the right? These won't be part of the campaign, but we might get out a handful before the Holidays ;)
Left or right?!
Thanks again for your support and patience!
Cheers, Jason
Locking Down Pledges in 24 Hours
over 7 years ago
– Tue, Sep 25, 2018 at 07:39:01 PM
Hi all,
So we are working through fountain pen grips at the moment and will start shipping some orders by the end of the week. There are a lot of potential pledge combinations, so we are just going to start shipping whatever we can fulfill with the current parts on hand. This is roughly 54 orders.
We'll be locking down pledges in 24 hours (roughly Noon Pacific Time) so please make any final changes if you need to. After the lock down you will not be able to change your pledge.
This first shipment only includes pledges for Brass fountain pens, and excludes pledges with options like other pen materials and Montblanc grips. Montblanc grips will be run last, but when those are done we should be able to complete fulfillment for all pledges.
Aluminum pens will be coming next, but they require tumbling, ultrasonic cleaning, and plating before we can start shipping those.
As always, thanks for your patience, support, and sorry about the delays. We try to run a tight ship but can't account for things like machine down time and vendor delays. Speaking of which, we should be getting in the remaining balance of Tanzanite ink before the end of the month!
Cheers,
Jason
Video Update
over 7 years ago
– Thu, Sep 13, 2018 at 07:33:52 PM
As promised, an update from the shop. We're close to getting pens out...
Thanks everyone for your patience!
Jason
BackerKit & Production Status
almost 8 years ago
– Fri, Jul 27, 2018 at 07:21:51 PM
Don't forget to complete your BackerKit!
Hi folks, thanks to all of you who have completed your BackerKit surveys. There are still about 40 of you that have not, and also a number of people who started their survey but have not fully completed it. In either case, you are receiving automated notifications to complete your survey. If you are not seeing them, please note what email you have registered with Kickstarter and also check your spam folder ;)
Production Status
Machining Schedule:
As you know from the last update, our primary lathe went down. I was out of action for about 2.5 weeks. Other than losing production time it's also going to cost us about $6,000 in repairs. The good news is, we are back up and running and currently machining aluminum pen bodies.
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The black bearing cage that keeps the ball-bearings evenly spaced broke apart in several places. This allowed the balls to float around causing all kinds of noise and excessive friction. As you can see in the image the three balls are touching and then there is a big gap to the right of the third ball...they should be spaced out and not clumped together.
No choice but to replace the entire spindle cartridge. The spindle is where the chuck holding the workpiece (the part we are machining) is mounted. It's connected to the drive motor at the other end. Pretty essential piece of kit :)
Assembly Schedule:
Right now we have most of the materials and supplies in stock. However, Bock also had an equipment malfunction on their production line, meaning we won't be getting all of our nibs until (hopefully) the first week of September. Germany has a 3 week national holiday in August, so that is the main reason for the long delay. We'll try to front-load as much production as possible and we should be able to get all rewards shipped quite quickly after getting in the nibs.
This issue, combined with the lathe down-time probably means we are going to have some delay on delivery of early-bird rewards. Stay tuned for more progress updates.
Cool stuff:
Custom notebooks also arrived! I'm super excited and they look fantastic! This paper works great with our nib/ink combination ;)
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If you haven't already, you can add them onto your pledge via your BackerKit account. As always, if you have questions about BackerKit: pledge, surveys, etc. you can email [email protected] and they can help you out!
