Exotic Sliders (...a reminder for you)
If you recall in my last blog post...
I talked about creating the Exotic Slider Waitlist. I'm not quite ready yet - but nearly there!
It's taking me a bit of time for two reasons:
#1 - I want to make it really brain-dead simple and clear how it will work (so I'm making sure I'm explaining it clearly)
and
#2 - On our side it's going to be a lot of emailing people individually and so I want to make sure we have a simple-ish method for how we do this
So, just to repeat...
The Waitlist is not ready yet - but I will let you know as soon as it is.
P.S. The two exotic materials I've offered so far have been Timascus (or MokuTi) and ZircuTi. But things are going to get a lot more interesting as I have also managed to source Aletai Meteorite, Copper/Steel Damascus (yeah, crazy mix), Damascus Steel (different patterns), SuperConductor (still to be shipped) ...and a range of New Timascus Patterns.
P.P.S. As I write this... TOMORROW is probably when you will receive an email from me about how to join the Exotic Slider Waitlist - so keep an eye on your email inbox!
Zirconium SkellyHex Is Back
The SkellyHex is our most popular slider as far as I can see - every one I put up sells fast.
We had a solid run earlier in the year of just Zirconium SkellyHex sliders ...but Zirconium has been a lot harder to come by (and even when I can get it ...it's many times higher that the cost of Titanium).
But finally...
We've managed to do a short run of SkellyHex Sliders in Zirconium.
The Black + Color combination on Zirconium works really well on the SkellyHex as you can see below.
P.S. Make the most of these Zirconium SkellyHex sliders - not sure when the next run will be:
More Robot "Behind The Scenes"
Our stonewash finish is popular - and part of it is done by hand.
Essentially, we hold the part in one hand and use a "gun" that sprays fine sand at a high pressure. It is physically challenging work to do this ..but that's not the main issue.
The main issue is that you can't really see what you're doing (because the bead blast cabinet is full of fine sand floating around). And, quite often, there are areas on the part that get missed ...so they have to go back in again.
So what we're doing is automating this process.
The good news for you:
The this part of the stonewashing process will be more consistent that if we had done it by hand.
And (of course) the selfishly good news for us:
Less back-breaking work hunched over the cabinet and having to re-do parts because we missed them.
It's almost ready - here's what we have so far:
More Vintage Micarta Coming Soon
As you probably know by now (because I'm always going on about it)...
New Zealand is a nice place to live - but it really is a small, isolated island. And, as a result, running a manufacturing business here has its challenges. And one of those challenges is that we have to import pretty much everything. Stainless Steel and Copper is the only thing we don't have to import (there is a huge dairy industry here and they use a LOT of stainless steel).
Titanium, Zirconium, Ultem, Exotics, and so on all has to be imported.
But here's why this is good:
Since I'm having to import anyway ...then I can pick from anywhere in the world! This "limitation" of having to import everything is actually no negative thing at all ...it's a feature with huge benefits. :-)
Honestly, I'm excited for the Vintage Micarta I've just sourced - and hopefully I'm not tempted fate by showing it to you because it's not even in the country yet.
Take a look at this gear:
From what I understand... this is fairly old and originally from the USSR.