I spent the last two months of 2010 working as hard as possible, not taking a day off, to try and have my hubs done by the end of the year. By mid-December, I had accepted that we wouldn't make it but still worked pretty hard anyways, simply because the momentum was there.
Most pieces were nearing completion. I was looking forward to a release around NAHBS time.
..well.. I now have to accept that that's not going to happen.
Last night I discovered a serious problem with all of the rear shells, making the entire batch garbage. I wasn't there for a couple of operations, and I wasn't there to measure them myself.
This is a huge blow to me, as I've been struggling to get this project going all of last year. I'm having a really hard time handling this failure. I'm the engineer, the production manager, the purchaser, the quality assurance guy, the key shareholder, and lately, the machinist's apprentice. That's quite a few jobs. I still can't believe I missed the error earlier in the process. I feel stupid.
In the next couple months I'm still going to be working at the DMT shop to get these hubs done. I'll also be resubmitting my patent application.. simply because I need to get that in. I'd like to actually see the Phil Wood 'Last hub standing' to see if it infringes on my pending patent at all.. but their website/blog doesn't exactly work. Hopefully that means they aren't too good with patent documentation over there either. I would hate to be scooped on not only production of this idea, but patenting it as well.
Anyways.. here are a couple pictures from the past couple months for those who care. Matt of Cantilever and Press taking possession of his Flite Club rack and riding off to reclaim wood for his business:
A couple shots of Flite 2 and Flite3 being mocked up:
..and the new revision of my 15T cog design (next to an old cog).
I've been getting a lot of emails lately about these. It looks like I'll be selling them before my hubs are ready. I've got a big pile of them already cut into blanks, and run on the lathe.. but each one takes over half an hour on the CNC mill right now. I'm working to speed that up a bit.
Anyways, I'm trying to stay positive, and look forward to the new year.. but after mapping out where I want to be, I've got a long ways to go.
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Chin up Lyle, tons of heads coast to coast are waiting to lace these bad boys up. Adds nothing but confidence to see that you're continuously refining the process behind them. Keep on keepin' on - 2k11's gonna be yr year.
Cheers from Seoul -
Chousen One