The Mini Mil has Landed

Well, at least it's landed in Berlin and is safely waiting in my neighbor's storage garage until the rigger can put it up 6.5 meters, through the windows and into my workshop. Hopefully we can get that done in the next coupe of weeks after Easter.

I had a structural engineer come out this week to make sure the floor will hold the weight. The Mini Mill will be sitting on two I-beams cemented to the floor to distribute the weight.

I can hardly wait to start making chips – or G10 dust – with the new machine!

Weekend Update!

I spent most of last week organizing the shop and throwing stuff out. Must be about 500+ pounds of old steel scrap downstairs now ready for the scrap heap.

I'll be selling my Sympuco engraver sharpening machine too, as I have never really used it.

If I don't need it, its got to go!

Kinda refreshing too, I gues the last big clean up was 6 years ago when the first Haas mill was delivered. I guess I better buy a new, big machine every 5 years just so I'll throw stuff out.

It remains cold here but at least no more snow, so hopefully the transpost of the Mini Mill can go ahead as planned next Tuesday and I'll have it here in Berlin on Wednesday. With a bit of lusk and some more moving stuff around, maybe I can get it upstairs by mid-April?

Looks like folks have returned to my website and I really appreciate it! That outage of almost 6 weeks really hurt my sales as you can imagine. The US$ has gained almost 10% against the Euro in the last couple of weeks – this makes it less expensive for customers from the USA to buy stuff from me. Take that as a Hint!

I doubt I will get to any knife or grip making next week. All my time will most likely go to organizing and moving tasks. I will of course still be shipping orders!

More Snow!

This is not how I pictured Spring, it looks more like "The Day After Tomorrow" out there today! We had to postpone bringing the Mini Mill to Berlin until next week -- when hopefully the weather will be more cooperative.

I really underestimated how much I'm going to have to re-organize the workshop to have a spot for the Mini Mill. But actually it will good to do a little Spring Cleaning and get rid of some stuff I don't need and don't really use.

So now Bring on Spring already!

Sunday, Sunday...

I have both in stock pages on my new website up to date and complete! Now I'm going bike riding!!

The Mini Mill is about ready to head South to Berlin

I spent Friday driving up toward Hamburg where I prepared the Haas Mini Mill for transport to my shop in Berlin. The machine transport guys are ready to roll and if all goes well – and we don't get another snow storm this week!! – I should have the machine in Berlin be end of the coming week. Here are a couple of pics below. It appears in excellent condition for a 2001 machine. There was quite a lot of goodies included, which I picked up and brought back Friday too. My Smart car was filled to the max.

(Website update) I'm still putting fixed blade knives up on the in stock page, I hope to get done by Sunday, but I gotta take some time off this weekend, I am bushed.

The in Stock Page is getting there!

I have spent the whole day sorting out a little jquery code problem and getting items onto the in stock pages. The new site has two in stock pages instead of just one on the old site. Now there is a page for WilkinsGRIP products and another page just knives and gear. This should make it easier to maintain and easier for folks to go to what they're looking for.

I will take me several days to get all the knives listed, so far I have about a dozen items up.

The WilkinsGRIP in stock page is almost finished I should have it complete this evening.

When I have the WilkinsGRIP in stock page on my new site done, I will delete the in stock page here on the blog. I don't have the time to try and maintain both. Thanks for everyone's patience!

My New Website is back Online!

Thank God and Pawel (that's Polish for Paul) I have finally gotten my revamped website online...

BUT...

...Don't panic, BUT the new in stock pages are not quite finished! I will be getting them done and all the products put in tomorrow. I've been working on writing captions and editing photos for the past two days solid. There are almost 200 photos on the website. I had to sort and size every damn one of them plus write some sort of – hopfully – interesting captions.

I want the new site to be interesting enough that folks will actually want to read it ... plus look at the purty pictures.

Plus: buy some stuff!

I will be fine tuning things over the next week, maybe swapping out some pics, adding a few and tweaking the copy. If anybody sees anything REALLY wrong, drop me an email. If I spelled phuck wrong, that's not the end of the world, get over it. ;-)

I'm working on getting the Haas Mini Mill picked up and brought to Berlin. It is located in the area around Hamburg which is about two hours drive from Berlin. We got a monste snow storm on the weekend so I'm waiting for that to melt and getting prices from machine transport guys. If that machine works as hoped, I will be able to really start cranking some stuff out. I will have to do some major moving shit around in the shop to make room for it. That's what weekends are for, right?

Lots of Friday News!

Increased Production Capacity

This week I purchased a Haas Mini Mill vertical machining center to keep my Haas TM1 company. The Mini Mill is several years old but indications are that it still has quite a few more productive years ahead. I sure hope so.

The new machine will allow me to increase my production capacity because two machines are better than one! The Mini Mill has an automatic tool changer which my TM1 lacks. The tool changer will allow me to push "start" and not have to stand there manually changing every tool. I hope to be able to continue making parts on the TM1 while the Mini Mill is churning away.

It will be several weeks before the machine arrives and is actually installed in my shop. It weighs in at around 1500 kilos and will have to be put through the window which is 6.5 meters above the ground.

I may be crazy for buying this thing ... I reckon time will tell!

WilkinsGRIP News

I am considering doing a large than usual run of WilkinsGRIP BMG X2 grip sets in anodized aluminum which would allow me to sell them at the same price as the G10 grip sets (€120 for non-EU sales). Before I invest in all the Alu and work ... who would be interested in some large Alu grips at that price??

Drop me an email with "I want Alu grips" in the subject and let me know what colors you would like. I would certainly do Hardcoat black and the dark, Blood Red so many folks like. But what other colors? I find usually darker colors look better than lighter colors in anodized Alu parts. I think a dark green would be good or maybe a Coyote Tan?? Give me some feedback!

Leafstorm Folders

I am working on some Leafstorm Folders which will be for sale from stock as soon as they are done. All will have S30V stainless blades. That is all the info I have right now.

New Grips in Stock

I added several new WilkinsGRIPs to the in stock page ... click the link to the right and check 'em out!

My new website is also coming along, I hope to have it more or less ready by next weekend. Tere are almost 30 pages and 100s of pics. It's a lot of work!