Another big update for everyone. All pre-orders have finally been fulfilled despite some major delays and problems with the anodized finish. I kept the pre-order customers up to date when it was happening, and want to share the story with the FC community.
When I launched the pre-orders the prototype Bud Bees were coming back from anodizing with a beautiful finish and believed it was a solved problem, however once the production batches came back from anodizing it was defect after defect resulting in a finish that was unacceptable to ship. After weeks of troubleshooting and working with the anodizer to tweak the process I finally started to get the results that matched the original prototypes. The anodizer and myself are still not certain how the original prototypes came out so good in the beginning with no tweaks to the process. To further add to the delays I also had the pleasure of needing an unexpected surgery at the beginning of March, which made almost all work grind to a halt. I am recovering well and I'm glad the pre-orders are now fulfilled, thank you everyone who pre-ordered and waited patiently. Moving forward I will be much more hesitant to take pre-orders to avoid a repeat of this.
Another topic that is very important for my American customers are tariffs. If you are not aware large tariffs have been imposed on products being imported from Canada into the US, and since the Bud Bee is made in Canada (with American aluminum) the Bud Bee would be subject to these tariffs. However, there is a customs law known as de minimis which excludes shipments under $800 USD from being subject to any tariff which means for my American customers you can freely order and import Bud Bees without worrying about tariffs.
Lastly progress on the
coarse grind plate is going well, prototypes have been made, tested, and tweaked and now that I'm happy with the grind production will start. There is also very limited inventory left over from the pre-order available on the
website now. More inventory incoming in a week or two.