It's finally here, the last shipping update!
Aside from one wrist rest that I have to remake, every order has been completed, polished, packaged up and shipped! If you did not receive an email with tracking information, please check your spam/promotional folder as they sometimes end up there. Otherwise, shoot me an email with your order number and I will check on the status for you. I have updated the album which you can find at the link below, but here are a few shots from the final batch:
https://photos.google.com/u/1/share/AF1QipMqZyaJl-dO8X1y_Nj61veqKTMBq5SYzy5tVHcfAU3LkM1XeGb54DKLyQcrg-A7UQ?key=ZG9kaS1VbE9YZWpCR3JMeGJoOWNKand3X1doU1NBOnce more I want to thank you all for making this project happen and being so patient along the way. I am far beyond my original delivery date, and everyone has been super chill about it. That is much appreciated on my end, and allowed me to take the time to make them to the best of my ability. It has been a ton of work, but I had a great time doing it. I've learned a lot along they way, and the work has inspired me with new ideas for future projects.
That being said, my books are now open again for new orders! I will make a post in the proper forum in a few days, but I wanted to give the folks following this thread a chance to get a chance before I make another thread. I am going to take orders for (up to) 20 wrist rests. In the future I may take larger orders, but right now is a very busy time for craft shows, and I want to make sure I don't spread myself too thin.
There are a few changes, and several new options available, so I'm going to break it down quickly below.
WOOD OPTIONSI have a few new wood choices for the next batch. The first addition is American Black Cherry. This is one of my new favorites to burn, producing a tight pattern similar to the maple and walnut from the last batch. It has a lot of reds, pinks and salmon tones, which darken with age to a reddish hue. Here is a picture of a bottle opener that was made from Cherry, with a white resin inlay:
The second addition is Curly Maple. Curly Maple comes from the same tree as the hard maple from the original group buy, but its a section of timer that has abnormal grain growth, resulting in heavy, curly figuring. Basically, this stuff looks holographic when the light hits it. As a thank you for setting this group buy up (and a chance to prototype), I made JB1830 a curly maple wrist rest to match one of his boards. It just showed up at his door, so I'm sure he will chime in with a picture once he gets a chance. Meanwhile, here's a preview of an ebonized curly maple rest. I did a color gradient on this one, which will also be available for new orders. The second picture is curly maple with a natural finish.
The last change is that I am no longer going to offer pine as an option. Pine was intended to be an economical option, but it has turned out to require much more labor, and more product to produce. The result is a wrist rest that is just as expensive to make, but lacks the durability of a true hardwood. I also feel the burns come out much nicer with the hardwood options.
I may add more wood species in the future, but I need to do more testing before we cross that bridge.
CUSTOM LENGTHSI will continue to offer the standard sizes, but you can now order any length you need (within reason of course). Just send me a note with your desired length along with your order.
RESIN COLORS AND BLENDSTaste the rainbow. I'm leaving the original color options up, but the floor is open for any color you like. I am also offering color gradients/mixtures similar to what you see above. My website limits the number of variants I can have for each product, and I am already maxed out, so just shoot me an email (through the website) with your wood type, length, and resin color(s). Then I will write you a custom invoice for your order.
PRICE and BATCH QUANTITY I made a post about this way back in May, so I'm just going to quote it quickly.
I think the biggest take-away from this project is that I would prefer to work in smaller batches. As much as I appreciate the financial stability of having lots of pending orders, accepting 100+ custom orders is a huge workload on top of the rest of the tasks involved with operating a small craft business. I am the only employee here, which means I also have to handle administrative duties, social media, booking shows, replenishing my stock and creating new products. These other aspects have suffered from my focus on the wrist rests. Additionally, I feel like constantly making the same thing has taken a toll on my creative output, which is the entire reason I quit working as a mechanic and started this journey. My current plan is to take up to 10 custom wrist rest orders each month, but include more options to allow deeper customization. I may increase this number during the winter, when business is slower (due to the lack of craft shows and post-holiday reduction in purchases). The second take-away is that I can't sustain the original group buy price. When I made the original wrist rest for JB1830, I didn't encounter any issues with warping or lose product due to blemishes and waste from milling. The amount of hours I have poured into the first few batches is over two times what I had estimated from the first build. I don't have a final price point yet, but I will determine that once I have all the factors nailed down.
For now, batch quantity is going to be based on my current workload. Right now, I can take up to 20 orders with a delivery date before New Years.
I have also locked down the pricing which is listed below. The original group buy price was based off of the time that I spent making the first wrist rest. After totaling up all the hours and costs for the group buy, that number was way off. Each of these rests takes between 3-4 hours to produce on average. I also neglected to consider the additional hours for sourcing the lumber, the cost of packing materials and the time involved with packaging/shipping the product, along with the wear on my tools in the shop. All of these factors have increased the price of the final product. Here is the breakdown:
Natural Maple, Walnut or Cherry: $100
Ebonized Maple: $110
Natural Curly Maple: $110
Ebonized Curly Maple: $120
Multi-color/Gradient: Add $10
The increase in pricing for ebonizing is due to the extra labor time involved with this process. Each piece needs to be sanded and dyed twice, along with additional time for color matching and touching up along the build. The black rests also require more polishing at the final stage.
The additional cost for color gradients is also due to increased labor time. The epoxy resin that I use to fill the burns has a limited pot-life before it starts to harden, and doing a blend takes additional time. This means I can only work on one rest at a time, instead of batching out several of the same color in one shot.
I have updated the product page on my website with all of the new options. Here's the link:
https://angrynimbuswoodcraft.com/collections/custom-wrist-rests-made-to-order