Ahoy all, looks like the thread shut down today, hope that means everyone is out playing or something?
Just shut down the shop. I finished up some desk caddies that can ship tomorrow and I also got the body wood cut for the batch. Next I will start making door panels and insetting them into the boxes. Hopefully the batch will be done in around 3 weeks, time to ride that roller-coaster again eh?
I wanted to comment on a couple of issues that I have heard from various people over the last couple months.
1: Doors too tight.
I have gotten two mods back that had to have the door panels sanded a bit more as they swelled and became too tight and were sticking. All the wood I use has a tendancy to swell and shrink no matter how much they are sealed, the ambient temperature itself can do this. It is wood and I cannot escape the nature of wood to adjust itself to the local climate.
I try to gauge by what type of wood I am using as to how much of a gap I leave between the door panel and the body. Some are bigger than others but I have not had a complaint of sticking doors in the last couple batches so I assume I am getting it right now.
2: Atomizer connecter. Atty/carto seems crooked.
The 510 atomizer connectors I use are cheaply made in quantity from China. If there are a better quality atomizer connector made somewhere else I am unaware of it and have to use what is available. I cannot correct this problem, but I can replace a connector if it appears grossly crooked, you never know, it might actually be slightly skewed inside.
The silicone/rubber seal inside is not very robust and tends to fail from being squashed by atomizers during use. Since I started filling the inside of the atomizer connector with glue there have been hardly any failures from this, so the trick must be working ok.
Speaking of failures. Mods up to the Cutlass 5.1 had a, what was it, 30% return rate for repair/tweaking? Then with the Mark-7,8 and 9 the failure rate dropped to around 13% if I recall correctly. So far (knock on wood) the failure rate of the next generation of II's has a 0% failure rate, time will tell how that plays out.
I really need to post a FAQ on the website....
I mentioned the finish before and how it is done. I am sure there are better ways to finish a mod, but I do not have the knowledge to do it so I am sticking with what I know and most people are happy with the results.
Website. I am hounding David to give me several things, a gallery of mods, some type of rewards/points system for previous buyers, a rewards system for
reviews, but I am at the mercy of what he can do and he is somewhat learning as he goes along and also dealing with his class schedule. He is staring his final year of college soon and I do not dare to steal too much of his time during classes.
I'm also hoping some kind of reward system will spawn more reviews, as always they are hard to come by.
Prices. The price of the Cruiser* at $89 is too low, but people love them and I love making people happy so will keep making them but perhaps in smaller quantities. The price of the Cutlass and Destroyers is too high, but cutting the price back down will put me back into the red again and I want to keep making these for as long as I can, but I am going to see if I can drop the price a bit next batch.
Desk caddy sales help a lot, the overhead is much less and the profit is better. Yup, they help the bottom line of RSM a lot so if you have any ideas for desk caddies, throw them my way. I'll be happy to get them.
You know, I was once clocked at 105 wpm typing. That was a long time ago but it's not hard to type a novel when I try, lol.
Christmas is coming up, I am trying to put some stuff aside for a great holiday give-away and I think it will work out fine. I just need to think of what to do for the next contest.
I told my son David that a bad side effect of a professional looking website is people will assume I am a company and I have seen some examples of that recently. I am looking hard at other things to stock on the website. Not little things as the time to get them shipped would negate any profit, but other things to sell while I am building the batch. Any suggestions along the lines of the A7 would always be welcome.
Ok, time to shut up and knock off for the night. Just wanted to make a post like I used to about how things are going and whats going on.
Yo ho!
Have a great night, arrr
