Bad news:

Zirconium is still near impossible to source (managing to get hold of some here and there)

Good news:

We have been dialing-in a NEW surface finishing on Titanium that is a dark black.

I'm calling it "Dark Matter". It's not proprietary to use (I've seen knifemakers doing a version of it).

It is not as hard-wearing as blackened Zirconium ...but it's still very good.

Also, on the plus side, it's a bit cheaper than titanium (there is only a small cost saving because, although Zirconium material costs more, the "Dark Matter" is a bit more of an involved process).

Sliders and Pens with Dark Matter finish have already started dropping.

Other than the two "Pebble Dimple" sliders in the below tray ...every other black slider in these trays are Titanium with "Dark Matter" finish:

Hey, Magnus, what do you mean by, "The Old Gang"?

Well, I talked about "Project Otter" last week. And, if you recall, that's our in-house name for something we're all working on. It's our plan to design, prototype and produce a lot more NEW, INNOVATIVE Sliders over the next couple of months.

We are starting with the low-hanging-fruit of taking a few of the most popular slider I used to make - but haven't actually made in at least a couple of years.

These sliders were very formative in helping get us to where we are now as a company -- hence "The Old Gang". :-)

We are re-designing these original sliders with new, updated plates.

The first three all use the same, new plate... the E48.

The E48 is essentially the same as the S48 ..but the corners are straight (instead of rounded) ...and the long sides are straight (instead of curved).

We've already started dropping these first three designs - the WideBoy, KingCrab and Egg Slicer:

But, for better or worse, we still don't have enough capacity to keep up with demand as it is (although, some of the older designs we still make do move slower).

So I just "re-invested" some funds -- which is a more agreeable way of saying "blew $10k" -- on some hefty chunks of aluminium to allow us to fit more parts on the CNC machines and run for longer.

This will give us increased production within a few weeks. We would like in invest in another CNC machine ...but we just don't have the funds available.

Here's the chunks of aluminium (in a week or two I'll show you them when they've been machined) - 45kg (90lb) each: