Getting ready to ship...

All:

The X-Pen is coming along nicely, and we are just about ready to start shipping. Here are some pictures...

We got the funding, now it's time to make some pens...

On December 14th, we got the funding from Kickstarter--almost $16,000! It was a great experience, and we are now in production mode. They look incredible! Attached are some pictures of the parts in progress. The folks at Quality Concepts Machine are doing a great job. They have been very professional to work with , and make an incredible product.

Here's the process... First, they start with a rod of stainless steel and rough form it:

Next, they machine in the cosmetic grooves, as well as the o-ring grooves.

This is a picture of the back of the pen, complete with o-ring grooves...

Here's the finished part (after we take off the "nub"):

Here's the back on the pen, and the finished cap as well:

Another shot of the finished pen and cap:

And the finished product...

We are still on track to start shipping later this month. So far, so good!

The X-Pen, now with a lid...

The response to the X-Pen over the past several days has been incredible! We've had several people mention that they want a cap for the pen, though. So, we looked at a way to put a nice cap on the pen, and feel that we have a great design. It's simply a carbon tube with a stainless tip. It looks great! Here are a few pics: We're going to offer it for $50 (no base is included!). Let me know what you think!

Technical specs of the X-Pen

Here are the technical specs on the $50 and the $70 pledges.

Add the X-Pen

The Fling project on Kickstarter was a success! We were able to achieve our funding goal and delivered all of the catapults to our customers. Thanks to all that participated!

I'm working with a great internet marketer to get a website setup for the direct sale of the catapults. To go along with it, we are introducing a new product that we call the X-Pen. It's an incredible pen that is made of carbon fiber with a machined stainless steel tip and back. It houses the incredible Pilot Hi-Tec C, which is one of the finest pen refills available. Here are some pictures of the latest prototype.

We made it!

Barring a huge natural disaster, we'll get the funding this weekend for the Fling. As of right now, we are about $250 over the $3,500 goal we had set. It's fun to see that it made it. We also have the production version ready to go, complete with aluminum rivets. It looks sharp. Here are a few pictures. I also included a highlighter in one of the pictures to give you a sense of the scale of the part. They work great!

Almost there...

About a month ago, we re-submitted the Fling project on Kickstarter. In the first few days, we received a large number of pledges, mostly of those that had pledged before and were pledging again... But since then, we have had a steady stream of pledges coming in and we just reached 90% of the funding this morning, and that's with 9 more days left on the project!

As it appears that we'll make the $3,500 goal (easily), we decided to create the tooling that we needed to fabricate the catapults. With the help of the fine folks at Premier Powder Coating, we bent up a couple of tools that make the creation of the design a snap. Dave and I have also started laying up the catapult arms, and they look excelleint! Here are a couple of pictures of the tool and the catapult arms...

We also had our rivet press tool come in this week. This will allow us to attach the catapult arm to the base and make it look good. The rivets are flat on the bottom and will have a rounded top to them. They look excellent!

The diamond tipped tile saw will be in today. Once we have that, we'll be set and will able to do the final production and assembly next week. We'll keep you posted! -Kyle