Hiku Production

The obsessing never ends! It’s really exciting to have everything coming together. Bits of Hiku and past prototypes are all over everyone’s desks as inspiration during these final months. Details and more details. Our final aluminum prototype arrived, and it’s beautiful. It represents our final batch of tweaks and improvements, including a handle design that we’re likely to move forward with.

Kanso Burrset Samples

The tooled burrset was due to ship just before the CNY break but our samples got stuck in the coating factory awaiting their Ti-N coating. It would have been nice to show everyone what it looks like for real, but this will have to wait until the first week of March. This doesn’t impact the schedule because the enclosure still needs to be tooled.

Production Start

We’ve settled on a set of key suppliers for the Hiku enclosure and internal mechanicals. The Purchase Orders for Hiku Production sit here waiting for the factories to return to full operation. As a matter of principle, we see no point in issuing the orders just as they are winding down for their holidays so these will go out the first week that their businesses resume so we can get proper attention and service. If you’ve ever been to a production facility in Asia in the weeks leading up to CNY, you’ll know that they are focussed primarily on shipping goods for eager (impatient) existing customer orders, not on servicing the kick-off of new projects. Will this impact the anticipated schedule? It might. Production lead times are the last topic of discussion after DFM, process, materials, quality and pricing which are all more important.

Latest Prototype

The latest prototype showcases aesthetic and functional refinements. Of particular interest to readers would probably be the handle which in this iteration is stainless steel. Yes, it’s heavier but a lot stronger. We think this safer approach is what we’ll take to ensure product longevity. It certainly adds an additional impression of quality with a bit more heft. With a bit more testing, we’ll be ready to lock the handle design as well. Photos shown subject to change, normal disclaimers apply, but change isn’t likely, and isn't likely to be radical if there is change at this point.

Summary

We shift our attention to being ready with production drawings, instructions, and the smaller components, many of which are not single-sourced. Please stay tuned for our regular updates and if you have questions, we’ll be monitoring the comments as always!