Hello everyone!
It’s nearing the end of September, and we have our monthly update here with the progress we’ve made over the last 30 days… ish. Also, where has September has gone?!
We’ve been deep in the world of metal, with all of our suppliers now in full swing and producing all the parts we need. We also reached a new milestone this month where we sent off the first parts for black anodising! That’s always a nail-biting moment, but they’re looking good and we didn’t have too many failures in the first batch.
Let’s get stuck in to a whip round of things that are in production in a bit more detail.
Brass In Action
We have brass soft jaws up in the machine being milled out. We’ve been milling so many of these out at this point it might look similar to some previous parts, but rest assured these are new and shiny bits!
Long Drive In Hand
Machining of the long lead screws has begun for all of the 82mm Fractal Vises. Here are the finished blanks ready for the final threading operation, which is done on a separate machine that will be tooled up to put our specialised thread on.
Outer Jaws Still In Production
We’re now making aluminium outer jaws! These are the parts that hold everything together on the vice, and allows all the other jaws to get their fractal on! The mill is in full material removal mode here; normally there would be coolant running to keep things chill, but we’ve switched that off here for you all to see the cutting in progress. Only momentarily, we didn’t want to dismay our machinists even more.
Fully Machined Final Stage Jaws
Continuing on from last month we have almost finished the stainless steel end stage jaws! Here they are stacked up prior to heading out for heat treatment in the coming months. This is where the metal goes to learn how to be hard.
Brass Jaws With The Final Finish
Some of the first fully finished brass flat jaws with the final brushed surface finish. There are still many more to make, but it’s nice to have some parts that are finished and looking oh so beautiful.
Vertical Jaws Half Formed
Ground has been broken on the Vertical Jaws! The first parts are going through their first stage machining, here you can see the remainder of the metal is still to be removed, but the jaws rise from the metal like the grip of a T-1000.
Crates Of Outer Jaws
Many boxes here filled with stainless steel outer jaws ready for surface finishing. At least these ones don’t bite…
Ball Mount Collars
Some new shiny bits that have been made this month are the locking collars for the desktop ball mount clamps. These are looking great and we have a few hundred of them already. Who doesn’t enjoy a shiny ball collar?
More Desktop Ball Mount Parts
Along the same lines as the above, we have been making the aluminium parts for the clamp. These are really satisfying little blocks of metal that when held the right way up look permanently shocked!
Anodising Is Underway
And finally, the big moment you’ve all been waiting for! Anodising has begun! This is now being batched throughout the coming months while we continue to machine the rest of the parts.
Well, that’s the highlights for this month! We’ve also been fiddling away with boxes, packaging foam, and mass amounts of backer data, getting all that ready and formatted for our shipping software. But that doesn’t photograph very well.
I hope you’ve all found these happenings interesting, as always if you have any questions feel free to reach out, leave a comment, or send us an email.
Until next month, let that metal continue to fly!