Archive for the ‘Progress Reports’ Category

Progress report

Thursday, February 16th, 2012

Maybe I should do these weekly? What do you think?

Anyway it’s warmed up a little. Workshop’s averaging about 10c when I get down there. Done a couple of test-casts and they look alright.

Will be casting up some from the still-intact moulds tomorrow with a view to ship on Saturday. Others are in progress.
The first couple of layers of filler have gone down to get the new moulds sorted. Another couple of days of that and they should be built up and finished enough to start laying on fresh silicone. After that I make up the new fibreglass jackets. So all being well, should able to cast the full range again by the end of next week.
Only potential delay I’m aware of will be if I run short on silicone or fibreglass resin. Should have enough of all regular resins and foam to fill current orders.

That said I know I’ll need more silicone to account for some more new items, but I don’t want to do piecemeal orders and get charged a tonne on separate shipping. Since TOMPS can get it to you in 2 days, it’s not worth it. I can just find other things to do in the meantime.

Webshop prep has stalled a bit again, but I’m aware we may be loosing internet here for a short while near the end of the month as our phoneline has to be physically dug up and replaced. Launching only to be unable to receive orders would not be good, so it’s not a huge concern. I would still like it to tie in nicely with a complete set of new moulds though, plus some stock on hand.

New soldering station also arrived on Monday, so with the donated oscilloscope and a repaired multimeter, I’m good to start work on the mecha-ears project again, as well as a few other ideas people may be interested in.

Also a complete fluke-find has gifted me with a LOT of leather in a texture that’s almost identical to vinyl leather I’ve previously used for texturing paw-pads. There’s enough I should be able to revamp the whole range and keep the distinctive look as well as push the foam-filled prototypes to a standard item.

New resin storage (at last)

Tuesday, June 21st, 2011

I’ve been holding off buying more casting supplies, because I was in dire need of a better way of storing them. The old fridge-freezer I’d been using was simply too small, and particularly in this damp weather I want somewhere dry and warm to be able to store the supplies where they’ll last longer.

Two weeks ago I managed to grab a large commercial display fridge off ebay, and after a lot of problems with the local garage and our van we managed to collect it.

Well actually we got within 0.7miles of collecting it before the van fuel-pump failed (which we’d repeatedly asked the garage to check, but they knew best & instead changed the distributor cap & leads. Not going back there now.). Thankfully the seller brought it down to our van in their car, so we got to get towed home with it in the back.

Today I finally managed to get it moved into the workshop.

It’s a big square insulated box. The glass door is a small concern, but I suppose it’ll get me to keep the place tidier.

I got the wiring tidied up and moved around. The refrigeration still works, and I’ll be seeing if it’s possible to use it as a dehumidifier. As you can see in the quick cameraphone pic, the oil-filled radiaitor currently takes up a lot of space, so I’ll be seeing it I can improve that, possibly by changing it for a filament heater (though I’m concerned about fire risk). Will be adding a couple of fixed temperature sensors at some point to trigger the fan and try and keep the temp evenly distributed.

There’s a hole at the top that also needs plugging, where the neon lamp used to be. Silly bit of design, but easier enough to work around.

Tomorrow I start work on moving everything I shifted to the other side of the workshop back again, so I can actually use the place and get on with the current orders.

Fun at Expo

Monday, May 30th, 2011

I was out at MCM Expo on Saturday stall-sitting. Karen of Kraken Kritters kindly let me sell some of my Ferret shirts on the table too, so there’s some money in the coffers again now! Just in time, as I need new materials.

The prototype horns I wore also got a lot of attention, so I’ll be pushing on with them. I just need to rig up a roto-moulding machine to get even hollow castings.

Gallery is still down, I know. In the intervening time I’ve had to reinstall this computer. On the upside though it’s running much faster now and I’ve found a lot of archive photos I thought had been lost. So new pics should be up soon. Likewise some lovely new example pieces.

Twitter Feed Updates for 2010-06-06

Sunday, June 6th, 2010
  • First days sales of lanyards fairly good. Quite happy with the performance. #

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Twitter Feed Updates for 2010-06-05

Saturday, June 5th, 2010
  • We have lanyards! #

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Twitter Feed Updates for 2010-06-03

Thursday, June 3rd, 2010
  • Have vacated workshop for past 4 days to allow brother to work on final university project in peace. Back to order casting tomorrow though. #

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Twitter Feed Updates for 2010-06-02

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010
  • Called Adband. Order of UKFur lanyards should be here Friday or Monday. Hoping for Friday; LondonFur meet on Saturday. #

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Twitter Feed Updates for 2010-06-01

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010
  • Inventory checked up. In the morning will chase up the UKFur lanyards order. #

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Twitter Feed Updates for 2010-05-31

Monday, May 31st, 2010
  • Testing http://www.starborneworks.com/ Twitter digest function. #
  • X-posting settings corrected. Recursion hopefully avoided. #
  • Customised goggles and prototype clear-cast styrene "eyes" delivered at MCM Expo yesterday. Good times all round! #
  • Selling through friends stall, "I HATE NARUTO" headbands declared very cool idea, but not a good seller. Unlikely to restock. #
  • Choc brown main pads cast up nicely, same for choc claws, but finger-pads under-filled. Will be re-casting. #

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Pre-Xmas catchup

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

Well Christmas is only three weeks away now, and I’m a busy little elf.
Most of the time since my last update has unfortunately been spent ill, so very little has gotten done. This past week and a half though I’ve finally been feeling better, so orders have started to roll out again! I’m really very sorry for the delay. Please check the Order Status page to see if I’ve gotten to yours yet. If not, it shouldn’t be long now!

During my downtime I had a few extra suggestions from those holding at safe distance, so the new year will see some changes in pricing and stock that should get orders out in much better time from here on.
I will be creating a stock of claws in the base colours (Black, white, red, green, orange, red, yellow and unpigmented) in standard packs of ten. These will follow the same basic pricing scheme as ever, based in per-claw by size (£10, £11 and £12). However I will be implementing an as-yet-undecided surcharge for non-standard quantities, and the prices for customisations will be going up a little.
In short, I won’t be treating every order like a custom job. The result will be the actual custom orders will get the extra attention they need and the standard orders will be shipped right away from a held stock.

And this will of course make implementing the site shop at long last a lot easier.

You may also notice I’ve added a couple of extra links to the “buy at” menu.
Spreadshirt is a print-on-demand clothing company. And if laying feverishly in bed is good for one thing, it’s crazy scrawlings to go on Tshirts. Expect some fun designs to show up there soon.
Etsy is a shopping forum for selling hand-made and custom items. I on occasion produce a bit of jewelery or something aesthetically pleasing, and will from here on be listing them through there.
And Lulu is probably one of the best known print-on-demand publishers, and while I do have some longer-term ideas about writing, they also allow you to produce other items like calenders and compilation CDs.

For each of the above they’ll be notifications through this site, so please subscribe to the RSS feed for those and other more esoteric updates.