100% Transparency

Hi Guys and Girls,

Just when we thought we were out of the woods and had plain sailing ahead another issue has raised its prickly head. As always in being 100% transparent with you, I will now go into what the problem is and what has been done to solve it. A large portion of Magware's production is complete but our manufacturer recently informed us that they started experiencing some issues with the hard anodizing due to color irregularities with three of the colors in the later stages of production. Unfortunately these are the trials and tribulations of manufacturing a new product that has not ever been made before. Constant hiccups and setbacks are a part of it all, as I have learnt over many years of manufacturing new designs you have to roll with the punches. As much as I am pulling my hair out right now we want Magware to be of the best quality we can possibly provide so we just need to power on.

Here's the situation - Our manufacturer has golden samples of the Magware that are specific pantone colors we signed off on, they have been strictly matching all the Magware produced against these samples to make sure they are accurate. Then three weeks ago they had to stop the hard anodizing process as they noticed three of the colors started to not match the golden samples. They have spent the last three weeks determining why exactly this is and have been working hard to solve the issue.They did not inform me of the issue straight away as they were hoping that they could just fix the issue quickly and it wouldn't have much of an impact on the production timings, but unfortunately as it turns out this is not the case.  This is the reason why I am only sending this update out now.

Hard anodizing is a lot more difficult procedure than your regular anodizing that you see on the majority of products (most electronic device cases for example) as it involves creating a much more dense natural oxide protective layer and a much higher abrasion resistance. Hard anodizing requires more process control and is produced in a refrigerated tank near the freezing point of water with higher voltages than regular anodizing. We choose hard anodizing for Magware as it provides a much greater quality of finish.

As they have already done a large number of the three remaining colors they know they can get the colors just right and they have now found a solution to achieve the consistency we require. They have just  started the hard anodizing process back up. The solution they found to get the color consistency is to do it in much smaller batches where they can control everything better and methodically check each stage. This in turn slows the process down greatly. They have found that if they don't do this, they start to run into the same problems again and have to stop everything again.

I have been putting quite a lot of pressure on our manufacturer to speed things up as I know it is very frustrating that you haven't received your Magware yet. Unfortunately it seems like the only way to achieve the quality we require is actually to slow the process down. This is hugely frustrating to me and has been the cause of some sleepless nights, as I feel a huge obligation to get them out as quickly as possible as I know they are already overdue. 

I am still 100% confident that we will get you your Magware to the high quality standard we have set, but that leaves us with the burning question; when are you going to receive your Magware? This is the tricky part for me and why I am nervously typing this as I want to give you a concrete date, but at the same time want to be accurate on this date and not have to write another similar update again. So I am just going to tell you exactly what I have been told by my manufacturer when I asked them this very question this morning. They  answered that they are pretty confident that they will have the production run completed within a month. So I'm afraid that would mean that your Magware will not be with you until January taking into account sea-freight shipping and fulfilment times. 

Everything in the shipping department has already been fully organized and our fulfilment company has everything ready to go with all your information in their system. If you do need to update your address before we ship, please do it directly in Backerkit as this is directly linked to our fulfilment companies database. Simply login to Backerkit then click 'edit your address' in the top right hand corner. This will also show you your Magware pledge details.

I hate to say it, but all I can do is to apologize yet again for the delays and promise you that you will get your Magware as soon as we can possibly get it to you .

Cheers

Mark