Turbocad's finally selling mods :)

[turbocad6]

and then this one again is FOR SALE, available to buy RIGHT NOW, if you want it PM me regardless of if your on the list or where you are on the list. this one really came out flawless and has a nice look to it with the ultem faceplate with the brass trim, these close up pictures just don't do it justice....

I'd really like to get the $440 for it, it's worth every cent, but right now things are really tight and I've fallen so far behind that I'm willing to negotiate, help this mod find a nice home, pm me a reasonable offer

 

[PLANofMAN]

Wish I had the money. That's a beautiful mod.

 

[turbocad6]

I've also got this one for sale. this one was actually a trade-/trade-up and it has a few minor flaws.

it has been used and shows some marks and minimal signs of wear. there is a cosmetic blemish at the top of the mod shown in the pics which was a repair, it has been reinforced and sealed within the CA finish. I have used this mod for the past several weeks and it works great, since I've been using it it comes with the silicone BFX bottle installed.

I can't use the classifieds here so I'm just putting it up for sale in this thread, $325 shipped OBO, this one too, nothing to do with the list... I may dig up another few minor blemished mods to sell here in the next few days too...

here is the blemish on top of the mod, it looks worse in pics like this but it's really not that noticeable in person and feels perfectly smooth:

 

[Raynman]

Beautiful Mods there Turbo! Bet you can guess which one I like best, LOL. Love the Natural finish. I even bookmarked the last page.

 

[BobC]

Beautiful Turbo, just beautiful

 

[super_X_drifter]

John, all of those mods look awesome man. Congrats on the sickness of your craft.

 

[laadam]

Messaged you turbo!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[turbocad6]

hey guys, the coco with the black face is sold, congrats to benthos who will be the first guy here to have a big apple mods dna200 and a dna75, both in some really nice woods enjoy it bro and thank you


just to be clear, that last orange one in post #743 is STILL AVAILABLE, PM me an offer and it could be yours. that one is a nice looking mod with a smooth as glass CA finish on it and it already includes the $20 silicone bottle on board

I may have another one or 2 blem mods available here in the next few days and I'll have a progress update in a little bit on the ULTEMS that I'm back to working on today

 

[PlanetGranite]

Out of curiosity, would either of the two possible blems coming up be lefties? Or better just to get on the list? I had been drooling over the coco mod since you first posted it. But sadly, I've gotten so used to lefty using a VF Squonk, I can't go back to right.

 

[turbocad6]

I don't think any of the current blems are lefties... man, honestly I originally developed the whole left right thing because I'm very picky with that too, I really only vape with my left hand but I've gotten stuck using "right handed" mods in my left hand past few months and I'm almost embarrassed to say that in many ways I actually prefer using a right handed dna75 mod in my left hand

the only differences of "left" and "right" is weather the door faces your palm or your face when holding it in your hand, and weather the squonk hole slightly favors the rear of the mod over the front. truth is the mod is very comfortable to use in either hand in either "left" or "right" configuration.

the labeling of "left" and "right" just follows conventional design. it has the door facing you and the squonk hole as a front wrap around squonk with the mod in it's designated hand, but the unconventional way, with a right handed mod in my left hand, the squonk hole is more towards the rear of the mod and the door is on the back, in my palm. The back of the mod becomes the front. it becomes a "rear door mod" and it actually becomes easier to squonk because you can squonk it even when the mod is just held loosely, much further out in my finger tips.

to squonk the conventional setup you have to have the mod more buried into your palm, completely in your grip to be able to reach around to squonk, or you'd have to flip the mod a bit to be able to reach the squonk hole.


here are a few shots showing what I mean.

this is a conventional left handed mod in my left hand. "conventional design" winds up having it completely in my grip, but then I have to contort my hand to reach my thumb to fire it in this position or let the mod slide down further towards my fingertips to fire it :

if I hold it out further, just in my fingertips, I can't reach the squonk:

I have to bring it up further into my grasp or flip it slightly to reach the squonk:

however this is a right handed mod in my left hand:

see how when the mod is hanging far out in my fingertips, not only I can still reach the squonk, but it actually falls right at my fingertip and I don't even have to curl my finger near as much to squonk and because it's further down towards my fingertips the fire button winds up easier to press without having to shift the mod at all in my grip too because I can just press it with my thumb without having to curl my thumb at all too, my thumb just naturally extends to the fire button at the tip of my thumb when I hold it further down in my grip like this :

the real difference is, this becomes the face I see when I use it:

which I really don't mind at all, I don't feel that I have to be facing the door in use really, and it feels great in hand and in use.


this is one of the things I love about the dna200 with pinky squonk and why I recommend a rear squonk hole with the larger dna200's, it just naturally falls with the squonk hole at your finger tips without having to have a death grip on the mod. yes being a dual 18650 it's obviously a little towards the larger side of things, BUT, with the pinky squonk the mod is usable even when just hanging from your fingertips instead of having to be fully in your grasp, makes the mod feel much smaller in use when you don't have to wrap your hands around the mod to use it. for anyone with tiny hands I'd recommend considering going for this "opposite of conventional" setup, a tiny hand with short fingers will be better ergonomically using a left mod in right hand or vice versa, if you can live with the door facing away from you in use.



that being said and although I'm now starting to appreciate the non conventional setup personally, I am mostly building right hand mods as the norm because
I have to assume that most people will want a conventional setup with the door facing them while holding it in there vape hand and obviously most people are right handed



as far as design here, the reason I don't do a completely side mounted or rear biased squonk hole opposite the door in my dna75 design is because then squonk pressure would exert a "pushing out" force against the door which could make it clicky, or less than solid feeling. this probably wouldn't be an issue if using the BFX bottles as they require so little pressure, pushing against the door would probably not be much of an issue....

the same way I was willing to design my mod to take a down sliding door for a centered atty, I guess I would also consider modifying my design to do a full side squonk or even rear biased squonk going against the door if someone really wanted that in an ultem or delrin mod as I can do a tighter fitting door on those, woods I would think would not be as good with this because wood doors tend to need to be slightly looser to allow for expansion and contraction with climate changes so a wood mod would be much more likely to see door movement with a squonk that pushes with pressure against the door.

as you can see I spend a lot of time thinking about ergonomics which is just as important as overall mod size., to me it's a very important part to making a mod as comfortable in use as possible, which is why I offer so many different configurations for those that want to fine tune the feel of the mod in hand. truth is you can hold and vape any mod in any configuration and most mods don't give you any choice anyway, it is the way it is, adapt to it, but here I want to offer the chance to adapt the mod to you rather than you adapting to the mod, if the makes any sense

 

[turbocad6]

ok, ULTEM ULTEM ULTEM!

first of all, for all those curious about time line and wondering how long they are going to have to wait for there mod, the real honest answer is, I don't really know hell I expected this last batch to be done over a month ago

I mean so far as I see things going as they are right now, at my current rate and barring any setbacks, from what I'm seeing I think i can safely say that I can build at least 10 wood mods a month. wood mods take a long time to build because wood is relatively delicate and each and every one has unique properties and challenges. some unstabilized woods also requires some resting time between operations as freshly cut wood acclimates to the environment and there is a lot of finishing time with each wood

if you cut and size a door with fresh wood it can shrink and/or warp within the first couple of days so it's better to rough cut, then wait till its acclimated to finish sizing it for the best fit. wood doesn't like being overheated and sanding and shaping or boring and machining can't be too aggressive or you could damage the wood. wood can crack, chip and warp even after many hours are already invested, and all kinds of other lovely things that ultem just doesn't have to worry about.

I'm thinking that hopefully I'll be able to build maybe 20 ultems in a month, but then to not abandon my wood peeps I would probably hope to be able to do maybe 10-15 ultems and 5 or 6 woods? of each months production a percentage of the mods will go to my other market too that I am also trying to develop. rules don't allow me to talk about any alternate ventures here on the forum and truth is you guys are my primary customers always with first choice and I will do the best I can to produce mods as fast as I can for you guys is the best I can promise.



truth is I wish I could build 50 mods a month or more right now, optimistically I had hoped to be building 10 a week by this point but it's just not possible yet. I hope to get there eventually but the truth is that I just work on the mods day after day after day and there still not done

building the mod body is only half the battle, making all the battery contacts and buttons and modifying the 510's and putting it all together takes a significant amount of time too. as I come up with more stream lined procedures for each of the steps it can all go towards saving time here and there but truth is most of this mod is just hand made from scratch to tight tolerances and trying to make everything fit together and be as perfect as I can make it takes a lot of time and finessing and obsessing over each detail of each one. def not mass produced mods here



ULTEM ULTEM ULTEM!

ok you've been waiting long enough, I've been waiting long enough, it's finally ultem time I do my best to set priorities in my work and the batch of woods that I was woking on just had to take priority as the first to get done. it's very inefficient to build mods one by one and bouncing back and forth between ultem and wood at the same time can be a real pita. I have kept poor Russ waiting so long now for an ultem that I feel so bad , I wish I could have just popped one out and send it to him long ago but I just had to get over the hurdle in front of me with these mods before moving on to finalizing the ultems.

here is where I am at with the ultems right now. I have 10 of them under construction with 4 of the 10 going to my other market and one going to russ. I was originally going to keep the one left handed black one with amber door/chip cover for myself but right now I don't think I can afford to keep it so it'll be sold too, I'll just build myself one in the next batch, so that makes 5 ultem mods available to you guys here in the next week or so, only 1 left handed black one with amber door and chip cover and one amber mod with black door and chip cover. if either of these combo's are popular enough then I could switch a few other ones around too and maybe mix-match another pair or 2, but as they are at this stage there set up as one of each mix-match combo and the others all being either all black or all amber. once the mods are final shaped the parts are then married and no longer easily interchangeable so nows the time to nail down what you want

ultems will go strictly by list as a priority, if your on the list towards the beginning and you want an ultem this means you if you're not ready then I can skip you and come back to you if you like but list takes priority. I'll be PM'ing those in line for ultems in the next few days but as it stands right now penguiness is sitting head-out as the queen of the list with first choice of any ultem combo available if your ready for it if your turn comes up and you want a specific combo or setup that's not available in this batch then you can specify exactly what you want and just go down as a custom order and your mod will be built to your exact specs in the next batch of ultems if you don't want o settle for whats available atm. this batch I just started without nailing down any particulars and built them all as right hand - down sliders figuring that should be the majority anyway I guess, but you can of course have your mod any way you want it


all that being said, it looks like it will take me several months to work towards the bottom of this list as it exists... trust me, I am always trying to improve production where I can and hopefully in the months to come I will only improve these numbers as I work on trying to improve and fine tune my procedures.... so ......

bringing the list foward ( red means completed) :



0. super x drifter(ultem ultem ultem)(dna75)
1. nautilusfan
2. Aal
3. penguiness (dna75)(ultem)
4. sqonker
5. 73neb (katalox)
6. benthos( purple double dyed, left in the second pair of blocks)(dna200)
7. clark f(white teak burl)(dna75)
8. distortoblotto(dna75)
9. tpedwards(dna200)
10. havok333(dna200)(blue resin hybrid, right in second pair)
11. Tamer El-Meehy
12. 67Tele(I got wood!)(dna75)
13. Kingdal (dna75)(ultem)
14. ghola1was (dna200) (darkest wood)
15. Rossum (DNA75)(wood)
16. spacetime(dna75)
17. want to quit
18. mcpuff (dna75) (ultem) or delrin if available
19. allpeppers (DNA 75)( Ultem)
20. ong999(dna 75)(ultem)
21. Balistix(dna75)(ultem)
22. benthos(dna200)(ultem)
23. Dee_ell(dna60/75)(ultem)
24. Robbie Vape
25. keithu2
26. deacon987
27. Unior(DNA75)(stabilized)
28. Ryan Hryciuk
29. laadam(dna75)
30. zulu83 (DNA60 Ultem)
31. piranjah
32. Copterstyle (DNA 75)( ultem)
33. adrian13(dna75)(ultem)
34. cheeseofvapes (dna75)(ultem)
35. Raynman some sort of DNA60 with left handed squonk hole
36. Plumeguy (DNA75) (black Ultem)(centered 510)
37. Hotsauc333 (DNA75) (ULTEM)
38. chellyc (dna75) (ultem)
39. Plumeguy (DNA60) (black Ultem)(centered 510)
40. Henry Etta (DNA75, black Ultem)
41. Rudy4653 (dna75)(black ultem)
42. Mackman (Ultem)
43. havok333 (Black Ultem)
44. ghola1was (DNA75) (black ultem)
45. penguiness (DNA60)
46. Gigdujour (dunno yet)
47. YePsTeR ???????
48. Tiedjan (DNA200)(black ultem)(centered 510)
49. Phanner (DNA75 Ultem, centered 510)
50. Papa_Lazarou (DNA75 ultem)
51. kingdal (dna75) (Ultem)
52. bgmat58 (DNA75/Ultem/Left Handed)
53. Armen (DNA75 Ultem, centered 510)


and ultem pics so far. I also have one blue delrin in this batch, again, list takes priority on that one too. ALL are dna75 down sliding door/centered atty setups and all are right hand configured except the one black 2-tone.

wow, too many words... sorry bout that

 

[Gigdujour]

I'm with you there John. I find myself using my "right handed" mod in my left hand about 90% of the time (I'm doing it as I type this). It really is a lot easier and it frees up my right hand for phone surfing [emoji6]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[PlanetGranite]

Wow turbo! What an excellently detailed and illustrated response! Thank you so much! I had wondered what it'd be like squonking one of your "conventional" mods left handed, and now I see it would totally work for me with my big ol mitts and the way I tend to hold mods. I have to say that aside from the overall beauty and craftsmanship of your mods, the ergonomics designed into them is also a huge draw. At least for me. Top fire buttons, center door squonking, hard edged boxes, etc, etc. Have tried them. The ergonomics (for me) just didn't work out well enough to keep using them all day every day.

 

[turbocad6]

for those who might be interested in seeing how things go together here I took a few pics of the door fitting procedure. each door is initially cut slightly oversized and doesn't fit the door track as it is cut, which is a good thing because the ultem comes as a rough machined finish and needs to be smoothed anyway and the best door fit comes with tailor fitting and tweaking each door to it's specific mod body it's paired with...


so first the mod body is hollowed out for the inner compartment and the door track is cut into the mod body:

the chip recess is also machined into the mod body at this stage and drilled for the chip mounting screws :

then the doors are cut out slightly oversize.... here they still have machining and clamping marks but it's a little too big to fit into the door track anyway at this point:

then the door is smoothed on it's interior which thins it a bit, making it closer to actually fitting the door track....

then the side sliding surfaces are also sanded little by little along with the rear surface of the door till each door gets to a precise fit, snuggly sliding into it's mating body:

then when the door is massaged to fit it's mod body it sits like this, protruding past the mod body until the outer door surface is leveled with the mod:

here you can see some of the amber doors at various stages of being leveled to the mod bodies :

next steps are continuing to level the rest of the doors, then start mounting the faceplates and then on to overall mod shaping, 510 drilling and all that other good stuff.... I'll try to update here with some more progress shots as these develop further

 

[BobC]

As Turbo lives nearby, I went for a visit to see the master at work, and let me tell you, da man has skilz.

He's got two floors of just about every tool setup a tool monger like me drools over, and sum of the latest technology for ultem polishing out there.

I saw first hand the amount of effort that goes into making one of these babies, spending about 8 hours as he walked me through each meticulous step in the process, and that's what it takes just to complete just the rough cutout and shaping of a single mod.

What I learned?

I shouldn't try this at home.

There are dozens of CNC programs for each intricate step in the process, that he walked me through, that he had to build and test on his custom CNC setup designed around the mod, and I saw the dozens of prototype it took to nail down the process.

I'm pretty sure the man don't sleep, as all this took place in just a few months from start to finish

It was an amazing experience, thanks so much Turbo.

 

[rudy4653]

Great pictures, great detailed explanations! Just like the detailed oriented craftsman making them! I like the custom options. Perhaps the option of having the squonk hole on the end similar to a CC mod that could be used by righties AND lefties!

 

[turbocad6]

yeah that's what I was talking about, with a CC/pinch type corner hole, but seeing as how my mod has a slide on door, a hole like that would cause the door to be pushed out slightly with each squonk...

I think that would work fine for a "door mod" like this only if the door is a relatively snug fit like I can do with ultem and delrin.

CC's and pinches don't have a separate door, so pressure against the door isn't an issue there at all. the bottle drops into a bore so a side hole is not a problem, a slide on door is a little different, ideally you don't want to be keep pushing the door out with each squonk, but again, I think I can do this no problem on anything other than wood which requires a slightly looser door fit in general... I might try a side squonk hole on the blue delrin first to see how it feels before committing to it in an ultem...

 

[phanner]

That's all I got

 

[distortoblotto]

As Turbo lives nearby, I went for a visit to see the master at work, and let me tell you, da man has skilz.

He's got two floors of just about every tool setup a tool monger like me drools over, and sum of the latest technology for ultem polishing out there.

I saw first hand the amount of effort that goes into making one of these babies, spending about 8 hours as he walked me through each meticulous step in the process, and that's what it takes just to complete just the rough cutout and shaping of a single mod.

What I learned?

I shouldn't try this at home.

There are dozens of CNC programs for each intricate step in the process, that he walked me through, that he had to build and test on his custom CNC setup designed around the mod, and I saw the dozens of prototype it took to nail down the process.

I'm pretty sure the man don't sleep, as all this took place in just a few months from start to finish

It was an amazing experience, thanks so much Turbo.

You mean Turbo had to put up with you for an entire 8 hours? Oh, the poor S.O.B!

Luv you man...

 

[67Tele]

IT'S HERE!

Pics and thoughts to come.

It's beautiful John!

Gracias!

Here's a sneak...

Stabilized wood, ebony panel from Turbo, left-handed, centered 510, Ultem buttons, DNA 75