Hey everyone! Goodness, I'm sorry I haven't updated in a while. This is Jane. We moved our manufacturing facilities and Jessica moved her family to be closer to those facilities and we're all just coming up for air after digging our way through endless boxes and packing tape. Insane. Moving is the absolute WORST. Anyway, here's an update on the fin, the new scale tails, etc.
1. The plastics company really struggled with the size of our new mold. It's huge compared to what they are used to producing and between my engineers breathing down their necks to make sure they made it right and us insisting that they didn't make it any smaller, it's taken longer than we thought to get finished. It's FINALLY DONE, and they are promising me I'll have the first batch of plastic fins to test this week. Oh my word, I hope they are right, I can't believe it is mid July! I've asked for photos of the mold so I'll have those to share soon, I hope.
2. We've had a small number of our foot pockets on the Keiki kid sized monofin have some tearing issues, especially on the back part of the heel. It looks like the factory we used skimped on some (not all) of the foot pockets by using thinner neoprene. It is HALF the thickness it was supposed to be on the ones that have torn . So we've been reworking things to make sure this doesn't happen in the future or with the bigger fin. We've changed the way the foot pockets are sewn to remove some stress from that heel area where they are pulled on and off a lot. I am getting the new samples today so we can beat the snot out of them and make sure they are up to par before we give the green light. Replacement foot pockets made out of thicker stuff are being made now for anyone who has a Keiki fin that has a torn foot pocket (if any of you have one, email us!) and then we'll have them start on the Nunui foot pockets as soon as we're certain the same manufacturing mistakes won't be made by the seamstresses. So unfortunately the wait on the foot pockets will add a few more weeks... I think we won't be shipping Nunui's until August, though the Kickstarter folks will get theirs earlier I hope. Though the delay sucks, I hope it shows that we refuse to ship a sub-par product, so when we do ship, you'll know you're getting our best.
3. The scale tails. Admittedly the manufacturing on these have taken a back seat to the fin, but we're plugging along. Our first batch of testers faded in the water so we switched manufacturing companies a few times and I think we're finally ready. I'm waiting on the latest color samples (the swatches did great, now we'll get bigger ones to make tester tails with), so I'll keep you posted on those. I will have teen/adult tail sizes in our regular sparkle tails, I'm picking them up this weekend.
If you're a Kickstarter backer, I'll be posting an update over there soon! I'm going to offer anyone who ordered a scale tail, a free sparkle tail when the fins come in to tide you over until we can make sure the scale tails are up to par.
Thanks all!
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