VESTRATTO’S Di VETRO LINE OF PRODUCTS “COOKIN WITH GLASS”
I’d like to thank everyone who has been keeping us in the shop late making more 14 and 18 mm WPA’s. As I’m writing this, on Sunday afternoon, we just sold out - again. Three drops in three weeks. Pretty Good :) We were confident that a lower cost of entry ANVIL was going to be a winner. When we took our straw pole just over half of our customers surveyed said they like to hit their ANVIL through a water piece. Achieving a cooler vapour experience is always desirable. Recently I saw some great discussion on FC and Discord about fitting the WPA to what I am going to broadly call the “Sherlock” category. Gotta admit this is pretty slick. Thanks to the community again for finding new ways to build on our ideas and make the ANVIL experience even better for everybody.
We anticipate another WPA and USA restocking drop this coming Friday so everyone who wants to, can still take advantage of October free shipping. We have received several requests to be able to pre-order. I have never liked taking money before we have the inventory in hand but given that this will be our fourth and third production runs respectively we feel pretty confident. We will likely open the store on Wednesday once we have clear visibility that everything is a go for the weekend packing and delivery.
VESTRATTO PROCESSES MOVING CLOSER TO MEDICAL GRADE STANDARDS
You may have been noticing a new, brighter shine on your ANVIL components recently. As part of the Vestratto continuous improvement process we have been finding ways to improve the surface quality of the parts we produce. This week I thought I’d share with you one of the new tools in our toolbox to bring you a better ANVIL. Electropolishing. Beyond the obvious better looking part, electropolishing is going to help you keep your ANVIL cleaner for longer. A smoother surface has less nooks and crannies to grab and hold onto vapour particles which can can cause build up and quickly become a mess. To understand what’s going on we can look at the diagrams below.
A limitation of machining is that the post machined surface is rarely ideal. I have drawn a closeup of a standard metal cutting tool on a lathe. In practice this tool has a cutting tip radius of 0.016”, and it is being moved forward at a rate of 0.003” per revolution. Ideally we would like to produce the green smooth surface, but because of the tool geometry we end up producing the black grooved surface instead. Those peaks and valleys can catch tiny bits of resin which then quickly build up causing clogs. A smoother surface, which catches fewer particles, could result in a longer interval between cleanings. Electropolishing is helping us move towards the smoother, easIer to maintain, medical grade surface finishes we desire. So how does electropolishing work?
The part to be polished, in this case the condenser, is connected to the positive side of an electrical circuit and then submerged into a conductive electrolyte solution. In our case the electrolyte is made up of three pretty nasty acids. Sulphuric, phosphoric and nitric acids form the bath. The cathode is a 1 inch diameter copper bar that runs along the outer walls of the tank on all sides so the parts are exposed to an electrical field from all directions. When current flows in the circuit microscopic pieces of stainless are etched from the high, sharp, pointy spots where the current density is highest. As the peaks are worn away the surface becomes shinier, smoother and easier to keep clean.
CHEERS
JOHN