We have good news to share! Whilst there have been slight delays from the original dates promised to us by our forging contractor, things are moving quickly now! All of the right-handed Söliditi knives have been forged, and are off to get the final touches. This will take up to 10 working days, so should be with Mark by mid-late March. And don’t worry lefties, yours will be close behind!
Mark is warming up his hands in anticipation, ready to get straight into sharpening mode! We will be shipping as quickly as Mark can sharpen, in order of date purchased. We should have the first batch on its way to you before the end of the month.
Here's some behind-the-scenes photos of the forging process in action, and the near-finished product!
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Bringing this world-first innovation to life sure has been a long and challenging labour of love, and we cannot thank you enough for your SOLID patience and support.
Mark will post an update in the group as soon as has received the first batch – you know he’ll be too excited to keep that quiet!
Dear Solid Lovers,
We are blessed and so grateful to have such a supportive Solid Lovers group - the vast majority of whom have been extremely patient with the delays to finishing and shipping these historic knives - and for that, we thank you.
This is certainly not the update I was hoping to put out, and I do so with a heavy heart. I had previously promised to sharpen and ship at least 100 per month, starting July/August. However, delays beyond our control have unfortunately made this impossible. I can’t sharpen the Söliditi™ knives until subcontractors have finished their parts of the complex manufacturing process. And complex it is: each step is so specialized that we need a different expert contractor for each phase. Most have been great, some have been slow. It is frustrating for everyone, beyond description, but we’re trying our best to be philosophical about it, while pushing as hard as we can for faster results.
We want to be fully transparent with you about where we’re at in the manufacturing process:
The pre-production castings (Sydney) are beautiful works of engineering art! I’ve never seen such quality in investment casting of carbon steel in my career.
Our forging contractor has been the main source of delays, and most of them beyond their control (Covid labour delays, injuries to key people), and some voluntary (we are a low priority customer when they have a lot of regular customers wanting very simple industrial forgings in large quantities – we’re not big, and not easy!). Our original forging contractor, who we’d held successful trials with prior, let us down. This has meant the set up of a new foundry, who needs to verify setup before production. Every week they promise to run the forging trials but frustratingly, they have yet to follow through. Unfortunately, we’ve ‘burned through’ all the other foundries in Australia, who all considered our innovative new product to be too difficult - the joys of manufacturing in Australia!
As soon as forging trials are complete, investment castings will be run in fast batches of 200, then hopefully forged quickly thereafter (simpler setup for production, after trials are finished), heat treated, then hand sharpened on the InversionEdge sharpening system, with real Japanese water stone edges, for real accuracy!
As long as our forging contractor really does finish setting up within a couple of weeks, we should be able to start shipping the first batch of Söliditi™ knives within 2 months. Yes, a serious delay after we anticipated shipping first batches in May. If there was anything we could humanly do to speed up the process, you know we would.
It’s more heartbreaking for us than you would know, so we are very grateful for those who are showing their love and understanding in this difficult time. It is particularly important for us to see that patience shared on social media, so other Lovers feeling nervous (particularly the new ones), will have more confidence that we’re doing our very best.
However, we understand if some really can’t wait any longer as we acknowledge the delays have been significant. If you would prefer a refund instead of waiting for our first Soliditi C5, please email us: info@solidteknics.com and we will quickly refund you and offer the allocated knife to another Lover on our list of those who missed out.
Please remember: this first batch of 15cm Usudeba knives is a rare piece of Solidteknics history. It will never again be stamped ‘1st Lovers Edition’, numbered and signed. We believe it’s worth waiting for, and we hope you’ll choose to stick with us through this bump in the road.
Because I’m so frustrated that I can’t get started hand sharpening your Usudeba knives, I will soon announce a hand-forged kitchen tool that will be offered only ever to Lovers in solid Titanium, as my way of thanking you for your patience. (The same tool will eventually be offered to the public in stainless steel.) We think you’ll love this innovative rare exclusive, and it will deliver much faster because it is much more under our control! If it proves popular with Lovers, I will be hand making more Titanium rarities in coming months.
We are truly sorry for the delays and you have the option of a refund if you’re unhappy, so would appreciate it if you didn’t voice your frustrations on social media.
Thank you all for your patience. It gives us great hope for the future of our Solid vision. We won’t forget the wonderful spirit you showed during this challenging time!
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