Great shots NYC and treecity. That one you picked, TheDude, is very sweet. My pictures do not do much justice for these Zaps. My eyes are not the greatest and my shooting/editing process is repetitious, making for images that are just OK considering the quality of the woodwork. Hard to beat seeing and holding in real time. Thanks to all our customers who show off their Zaps here on FC and everywhere.
Interesting comments on the hand engraving of the wood species at the bottom backside of the wood. We do not take offense and understand those opinions. After all, we are selling to the public so your opinion is very important to us.
I do want to take a minute to say a few words about our work in general and specifically the hand lettering identifying the wood.
First, as you know we are old, relatively speaking. The physical Zapville team are all mid to late '60s folks. The person doing the wood turning has had a life of physical pain primarily caused by childhood polio. He also is dyslexic and has a very difficult time getting numbers and letters in the right order. He has also worked very hard his entire life building a business with several employees. He is also one fine wood artist.
His involvement turning our beautiful Zaps is a pleasant release for him. He is having fun creating such beauty that will be around for a very long time AND also has a very important function, a daily and often hourly function. The engraving is done with a high speed air powered Dental drill and is not easy to control, depending on grain patterns.
Bottom line is this is a signature by the wonderful human who created the piece. It is very imperfect as it should be but also reflects the pain and anguish this man has endured his entire life. It is his way of saying..."here you are, enjoy".
We will continue the process for now and solicit actual customer comments when they are visible in real time to the customer. We welcome those comments here. The actual drill bit doing the engraving has been reduced in size to be barely noticeable but definitely there.
As you can sense, I like the lettering. I like that it is a personalization of each Zap that also reflects the man who created the art from wood he has been scrounging for many years. We will do what the customer wants but we first need to let this one percolate through time for a good analysis before changing anything. These things are all very special even though we churn them out like we are into a production thing, which we are.
We will also always provide options for our customers, assuming it is practical to do so.