Thanks guys! Very kind words of encouragement all around.
I know there has been some confusion about where things are at with the Nomad IIs and the overlap with Nomad batches and the Toads, so I just wanted to give an overview.
Most of Batch 1 is now done and has been shipped out over the past number of months. I'm currently working on the very last of them and will be sharing the final pictures and shipping them soon. I've been reaching for this goal with all my effort.
Looking back over Batch 1, I don't think it was a wise choice to break it up into smaller groups to be shipped out at different times. I think this just caused confusion for people in batches 2 and 3. It also didn't make things go any faster. Lesson learned there.
Batch 2 has been getting photo-album updates twice a month. I started Batch 2 updates thinking I was almost done Batch 1... they have overlapped for longer than I originally intended. My full-time work has been on finishing Batch 1. Once those final few are out the door, I will be working full-time on Batch 2.
As I have mentioned before, the Nomad II project has been more time consuming than I bargained for. My time estimates did not pan out and I've been playing catch-up ever since. It's been difficult to manage, to say the least.
Also, I know there has been some people wondering what's going on with the Toads (rightly so), and I want to address that as well.
The Toads were originally a side project that were spawned out of my experience with the Nomads. The Toads very slowly evolved in the background for more than a year, mostly just a night here and there toying around at my vape desk.
As it turned out, I found I was able to make them very efficiently, more so than I thought. With lots of help from my partner Steff and my existing Nomad tooling, the crafting process felt like a complete change from what I had been struggling with on the Nomads.
Making a small number of Toads not only fueled my over-all productivity (
@gordontreeman definitely brought up some great points on that), but its also allowed me to put a pause on taking any new Nomad II orders until I am able to fully catch up.
The Toads became a way to buy time, essentially. With that time, I would be able to continue full-time getting the Nomads out the door.
It's not the order I would have liked to do things, in fact I tried desperately to avoid it. Ideally the Nomads would have all been finished before the Toads.
I can't say enough how appreciative I am of this community and my supporters for sticking around through the process. I'm looking forward to the rest of this year... as it feels like I am getting closer to the end of this project, and hopefully back to a more sustainable work schedule as well!
The plan for the foreseeable future is to get the Nomads out the door as fast as I am able to. Rest assured that I am as eager as anyone to see them go to their new homes. I'm also planning to continue the Nomad series at some point. The high-end, all wood design is something that I definitely want to keep alive. Though... obviously with some tweaks to the ordering process.
