Friday 8 August 2014

Explanation For The Delay In Shipping Your Grill Mount

Originally the Grill Mount was supposed to be shipping the first week of July but we underestimated how picky we were when it came to quality control. Have been the recipients of less than awesome products in the past, we didn't want to be the guys sending out something that we weren't totally stoked on.  We hoped that our customers would understand that our desire for a part as perfect as we could make it would overcome the disappointment at receiving the Grill Mount so much later than originally promised.

It's been an adventure that's for sure. As it's our first product we wanted to make sure that we had it as perfect as possible. The mold that had to be made was rather complex as other than where you bite, there isn't really a straight line on the Grill Mount. It wasn't a big deal when we were 3D printing each part and then taking them to Hawaii to test. We did find out though that "No straight lines" makes for a harder mold build and as we found out, a bit of room for different issues.

The first batch had an issue with the polycarbonate arms bending up when the EVA was overmolded onto the polycarbonate. The heat from the molten EVA was changing the way the polycarb flexed.

Once we fixed that, the next issue was that the EVA over molding has to match the finished size of the polycarbonate. As the finished size can vary due to the shrinkage that happens as  the polycarb sets, the mold for the EVA had to be adjusted to make it mate up perfectly.

The third batch had a slight issue with shrinkage in so far as it wasn't shrinking as much around the nut as was forecast so we had to adjust the mold there. While the mold maker was adjusting the mold for that we had them fix the seams and injection mark to make them as small as possible so there would be as little "edge seam sharpness" to bother your hand when it has gone soft from being in the water for hours and hours.

We are pretty sure that this batch that is due to arrive the end of August has everything nailed and we can finally ship you our pride and joy.

We're picky bastards and we apologize. It's been driving us as nuts as I'm sure our delays have been driving you nuts. I know from talking to more than a few you that a lot of you are waiting for for your Grills for an epic Mentawai session. Hopefully the Grill Mount can make it onto your trips so you get the magic moments you are looking for to back up a lifetime of stories down at the pub and around the campfire.

The photos in this post are from the first three batches. The final ones are even better.

Anyway... to make a long story short, we don't want to send any thing out that isn't as perfect as we can make it because we want you to experience awesomeness. You have our deepest apologies at the length of time it's taken to get the Grill Mount to you.


Ken and Greg