Hi Guys. Its John here.
The War Crimes being committed by the Russian Army continue in Ukraine. In the 21st Century it is unbelievable that these acts of horror are thought to be acceptable by anyone. I am floored that many Nations I expected more from have not come right out and condemned the Russian actions and I can assure you I’m personally not pleased. And so I am going to use Vestratto to try and do a bit of good. On Wednesday we will be opening a special drop of FIVE Anvil kits and donating 100% of the proceeds to help provide some small relief to refugees from Ukraine through Canadian Red Cross Ukraine Relief. These special kits will include, an Anvil, 1/2 and full bowl, a utility tube, a blue heat shield and a yellow heat shield. The posted cost for the kit will be $300 with 100% of proceeds to the Red Cross. Shipping is extra. This is a first come first served offer. I am going to drop it around noon Wednesday, Toronto time, 12 pm EST. This is OUTSIDE the waitlist. Good luck and thank you for helping Vestratto do some good for the people who have been displaced by conflict. We will follow up with you on how the proceeds are benefiting the folks who need some help.
Last Week’s Drop
Last week’s drop was mostly successful. For everyone who had a straightforward purchase we were sorted out by Friday. We had a couple of orders carry on into the weekend that had some “hair” on them. We shipped 90 percent of the units before we actually received the money in our account. It isn’t three days. My next business I’m opening a bank. If your credit card bounces and we’ve shipped you get ready for me to go ape on reddit :) The types of issues that caused delays included crazy shipping charges to far away lands, folks who’s credit/debit cards got slowed down by our Payment Processor, folks who needed to arrange alternate payment methods and similar such problems. We did not buy any “my dog ate my homework” excuses. We are trying to be fair and accommodating to legitimate problems and I think the gang in Admin have done a great job.
This Weeks Drop
We are dropping again tomorrow. Folks on the waitlist who are affected have been notified already. We are going to do another drop later in the week. Thursday or Friday depending on our build quantities. Last week’s drop we had the inventory in hand. This week’s drop we have the Anvils already assembled as at the time of writing tonight. As we build up our capacity we hope to serve you better.
Do the sharks have lasers? Give me a frickin’ break!
Lasers play a significant role in getting your Anvil to work the way it is intended. We presently have two laser systems that we employ with a third on the way :) The photo on the left is the precision laser cutting table. The photo on the right is the rotary laser welding system we use to make the herb chambers. I just posted our current laser welding process on the Vestratto Instagram. Check it out. The photograph on the left shows the 0.320” screens being cut from 0.010” 316 stainless steel. It takes approximately 2 minutes to cut a single screen. We blow pressurized pure oxygen into the laser slit to increase the temperature and create a clean cut. The cut is actually only 1/1000th of an inch wide. To put that into perspective the hair on your head has a four times large diameter at 0.004”. The system is seriously accurate. My creative juices are flowing and you are going to see an amazing new part in April. Spoiler alert. Its amazing! Another part we are already making with the laser cutting table is the flytrap Mass filter that is cut from 16/thousandths thick titanium foil and then given the 180 degree twist. After the screens and flytrap parts are cut we place them in a vibratory tank full of ceramic media that jostles against the tiny parts. After about an hour the parts are cleaned and any small burrs of weld slag have been worn away.
Current Anvil Build Quality
You guys know that I’m a fan of continuous improvement. I’ve spent a bit of time tonight on our lasers because I want you to trust that we are incredibly intentional in the Anvil. We reserve the right in our designs to make certain aspects pretty, and juxtapose them with attributes that are wildly functional. In the early days I made the analogy that some aspects of the Anvil are going to be finished like a showroom Ferrari and some like a Nascar Race Car. We have decided to stop trying to polish the bottom of the herb chambers - Nascar, and have added more polish to the mouthpiece - Ferrari. (Kudo’s to Charles Leclerc btw who got stuck in in Bahrain today.)
I posted our current welding video on the Vestratto instagram this evening. We weld the the magnetic 416 disc into a pocket milled in the base of the 316 herb chamber. We do not add any filler to the weld joint and rely exclusively on the fit-up to achieve a good joint. We size the hole to a light interference fit, about 0.0003 inches. In order to reduce any potential negative impacts of the weld on the snap disc function we have reduced the number of weld steps and the weld power to protect the of snap discs from over heating. In future we may offer a properly polished version at a premium price. In order to make a weld joint thick enough to polish with impunity we need a significantly stronger spot, and as such we will need to complete the weld over a much longer time to avoid overheating and risking damaging the discs. We have recently been trying to polish lightly and while we cleaned the weld up a bit it in no way achieved a mirror finish and I’m not convinced it looks any better than the native weld. And so I made a decision. Maximize the function of the herb chamber. Do everything to improve the performance and longevity of the snap discs. Polish the part you put in your mouth and “Nascar” the crap out of the part you put in the Anvil. This is consistent with the three attributes of a great vape. The vapour, the vapour and the vapour. In future when we can afford it we intend to move from a single station rotary welder to a multi-station, 5X5, cartesian welder. At that time we can space the welds out, make them thicker, and implement a polishing program for those that are willing to pay the premium. Until then this photo shows you what is current build expectation.
Cheers
John