What a long time coming.
Starting tomorrow we’re shipping backlogged orders.
I’ll start with the problems that started all this off.
- Parts were failing internal strength tests prior to shipment
- Parts were being produced with excess surface porosity that was aesthetically garbage, and could lead to mechanical failure.
Given these two issues, we were seeing very high failure rates. To make matters worse, as we chased the strength issue, we saw increased porosity. The further we dove into the porosity problem we discovered more strength problems. It got to the point that about 50-75% of everything we were producing was garbage, and we were only shipping a little over a quarter of what we were producing. From a business perspective, this wasn’t tenable.
We immediately paused production and began working with all manufacturers involved in our sintering process; the powder manufacturer and the Selective Laser Sintering machine.
As noted in our previous blog post, the machine manufacturer sent us tools that helped us identify an oversight in manufacturing that led to our machine’s laser being underpowered. I explain a lot of it here- https://hamreforge.com/discoveries-have-been-made/
With the laser power fixed, we were then able to create a material profile from scratch. In about a week. (mic drop) We have been testing this all week, and finally as of this weekend, we’re making good parts. They look amazing, they’re strong, they have all the material qualities they should, and they feel great.
We’re excited, and we can’t wait to get back on track, filling orders we’ve received, and being able to release new products that have been sitting on the backburner waiting for the machine to be productive.
We’re keeping most of our products currently on backorder until we’re all caught up with our backlog. As soon as we’re all caught up, we’ll mark stuff in stock. Many of you have signed up for in stock notifications, and others have directly expressed the desire to get their hands on our stocks. All these things should be happening in short order.
As always, we appreciate your support. None of this would be happening without you guys. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have questions.
Regards,
Ryan Hamre