UPDATE!TLDR;
The reason for the many delays is that the last samples showed fractures at the edges. A lot of testing with different alloys, radiuses, tool setups and material thickness had to be done. The issue is now resolved, we found the right recipe to avoid any fractures without altering the design too much. If you are not happy with the changes - pm me to cancel your order. It's also cheaper now.
The whole story:
First SORRY for the constant delays! Now let me explain to you why. I mentioned a few times before that I wanted to ensure that there won't be any quality issues when we go to production. Behind this was one specific issue that was very difficult to control. If you bend aluminium you sometimes get fractures at the edge. This wasn't happening with my first prototype and therefore I had no reason to believe this might become a problem. But the last samples (which you saw many pictures of) all had fractures at the edges. The reason none of you realized those fractures in the pictures is probably because of the file compression and also because the bead blasting reduces the effect to a certain extent. Regardless if you spot it or not - there is now way I would have ever been fine with this. The manufacturer first told me we would just have to use a different alloy but still the fractures appeared. I had to adapt the design a few times and the manufacturer tried different tooling. The most noticeable change that had to be made was to reduce the material thickness. 3mm was insanely thick for an object of this size. We tried 2.5mm but it was still too thick. 2mm thickness combined with a slightly bigger radius turned out to be good. Now maybe some of you will be disappointed and think that going from 3 to 2 mm is a bad thing but let me put this into perspective. Sheet metal enclosures for electronics of comparable size usually use a thickness of 0.5mm. Even bigger enclosures like PC cases go with 0.5mm, sometimes 1mm. Only very expensive PC cases use a thickness of 1.5mm but not 2mm. So with 2mm thickness at this small scale we are still at level overkill. The 3mm was just insane and with the knowledge I have now, I can say that 3mm would have only work when bending it over a huge radius - something that just doesn't fit in the design scale of a keyboard.
This gave me sleepless nights. At some point I thought I would have to cancel the whole damn GB but working on a solution turned out to be successful.
I hope you understand that this took time, especially because in between changes I had to wait an annoyingly long time for results. The manufacturer is jam-full of orders and my one is comparably insignificant.
So this was the reason why I had to delay the invoicing for so many times. Collecting the money before I'm not sure that all works out, is something I just wouldn't be comfortable with.
I made new renderings, illustrations and updated the links in the start post. The overall appearance is still the same imo. The frame is now 1mm wider on each side and the outer radius ended up slightly bigger. The weight of the finished build was a bit heavier than a poker3, now it will be roughly the same weight. I decided to make the frame a bit higher so now the caps sink in a bit deeper, while at the same time I managed to keep the very low height of the lowest row. IchiBalzac kindly sent me a PCB with hot-swap sockets. Now that I have all the dimensions I can say that even at the lowest 6 degree you won't have any problem fitting them in. You also have the freedom to use different sized standoffs or spacers to raise or even lower the plate further.
The sample is almost finished - just the bead-blasting and then the anodizing isn't done jet. I'll get it at the end of next week and can then make another build and pictures. After that the invoicing will start - for real this time!
If you feel that you don't want to participate in the GB anymore due to the changes, please pm me.
Last thing to mention is the new price point. The current order quantity (almost 170) combined with the slightly thinner aluminium make the following prices possible:
SKB60: 115 (was before 128)
SKB65: 125 (was before 136)
SKB75: 135 (was before 145)
Extra plate: 20 (was before 25)
Thank you very much for your understanding and patience!
This is how it looks now:
Here is the whole album