It looks like we will be able to reopen the store on Tuesday 22 April, as promised.

MakerSlide is in stock (although some length may go out of stock briefly, because I’m still fighting the inadequate stock management feature of the store software).  More stock is available on short notice (one or two weeks) from the uncut stock at the factory, and yet more can be extruded fairly quickly, now that we have a die with a reliable supplier.

The eShapeoko kit will be back in stock and available to order this coming week.  I expect enough orders to create a large backlog; it may take us three weeks to ship the orders received in the first couple of days.  Of course, I’ll keep everyone updated.

Due to a combination of family, health and supply circumstances, our online store is closed until after Easter.  We will reopen on the 22nd of April.  We will ship existing orders by the end of this week, but you will not be able to place new orders until the 22nd.  We realize this is very awkward, but we prefer to stop accepting orders, rather than take orders, sit on them for three weeks while we’re not able to fulfil them, and create a backlog that will take a long time to clear.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

MakerSlide is back in the store.  You can buy it in these lengths: 2 m, 1.5 m, 1 m, 750 mm, 500 mm, 375 mm and 250 mm.

The MakerSlide delivery arrived today. The pallets did not fit the way I expected, so I had to unload practically all of it to get it inside. This being England, of course it began raining minutes after I had removed the wrapping (and the rain stopped about the same time I finished, of course).

I haven’t had a chance to look at it carefully yet, but I’m doing that later tonight. Barring major problems, it should be in the shop tomorrow night at the latest.

MakerSlide is not here yet, but the day is still young.

In the meantime, these arrived from the States.  They are stainless steel precision washers, 1.00 mm thick, 5.00 mm inner diameter, 7.70 mm outer diameter (actual measurements 1.01 mm, 5.05 mm, 7.72 mm, with less than 0.01 mm variation between samples).  In addition to the increased precision, these have a major advantage over our old shim washers (and over those from Inventables, which are 10 mm outer diameter): they can not touch the bearing shields, because they are no wider than the inner race of the bearing.  This will reduce the chance of problems caused by shields that aren’t recessed enough, and eliminate one source of frustration when assembling your eShapeoko.

I have a delivery of MakerSlide coming in tomorrow.  I don’t have an estimated time yet (and the date isn’t guaranteed by the transport company, so there’s a small chance they might arrive on Thursday instead).

Progress!  I got an invoice for tooling charges.

Nothing else to report; will know on Monday whether they have managed to finish cutting the rail.

Because it was delayed waiting for the sleeve, cutting the MakerSlide then conflicted with other scheduled jobs, so it got delayed further.  They said they would try to finish cutting it by the end of this week.

It continues to amaze me how trivial the things that derail a schedule can be.  The plastic sleeve for packaging MakerSlide was out of stock, and arrived at the factory only last Friday.  The whole batch of MakerSlide sat in the warehouse, uncut, for more than a week, waiting for packaging material to arrive.  To reduce the risk of damage, the cut parts must go from the saw straight into the sleeves — so no sleeve, no cutting (that’s actually a good thing).  However, there are several other suppliers of the same type of sleeve, and we decided on the packaging material months ago, so one can’t help but wonder why we had to wait.

I got the anodized samples of MakerSlide on Monday (three one-metre pieces, all three perfect), and I gave the go-ahead for cutting.  They should have finished by now.  I’ll get a fresh update in the morning.  Last week I was hoping we would get the delivery by the end of this week.  That’s still possible; I’ll know more tomorrow.