Daniel Hillard:  “After you box them?”

As an update the factory has completed assembly of most of the keyboards but is still working on finishing up mass assembly.

To avoid having everyone wait any longer, they will be shipping me by container ship most of the early bird keyboards but not all of them. The remaining early bird keyboards will ship a month or so later. They expect to give me more than enough keyboards (both compact and classic style) to keep me busy with shipments out to everyone in the mean time.

This means the expectation is that the keyboards arrive to me in early November!

I want to thank everyone again for their patience with the factories as they worked to produce parts worthy enough for a Brand New Model F Keyboard.  This project would not have been completed the right way had we focused on deadlines over quality standards and I am happy to see all of the continued support for this quality focus on the forums and from emails.

As noted earlier this month:  Still time to place your order for any keyboard or to add on to your order with extra parts for future repairs and configurations (First Aid Kit, extra flippers/springs, inner foam, cases, etc.).

Initially I expected the factory to determine they could finish X number of keyboards per day and complete everything by the formula:  total quantity/X days.  But I have learned that the factories train the assembly workers to assemble one configuration of product at a time and some configs are more tricky than others for the workers doing the assembly.  They started with the classic style keyboards and expected to be finished by this point but there were some unexpected assembly challenges with the ultra compact cases so assembly slowed significantly.  The assemblers also made some mistakes with the classic style cases (e.g. forgot to put the 2-3 nub keys where needed) and this resulted in additional time needed.  It may be quick to fix one keyboard mistake but slower to fix one mistake on hundreds of units when everything has already been boxed!

Note on the low serial option:  the orders with the low serial selection/upgrade will get prioritized.  You can still upgrade your current order after the fact with the low serial upgrade store item, so that your keyboard is one of the first 200 or so to ship.

Note on signature requirements and shipping address updates:  Please feel free to email me for address updates and requesting a signature requirement (signature requirement costs about $5 extra).

More information on the packaging:

I will probably wrap the boxes in a plastic type gray wrap. No double boxing unless extra large stuff is ordered.

Some more photos of the boxes: below are some detailed photos of the double walled box edges. The fold is designed to resemble that of the Model M 1391401 box but with double walled box construction so the product box would double as a shipping box (wrapped with gray wrap to avoid stickers on the box).

I have ordered fiber reinforced tape for the classic style keyboard foam packaging (similar to what IBM used) and I have a gummed paper tape machine for sealing all the boxes (will be using 72mm wide reinforced paper tape)