Limited Run DaveP's Obi Static Parts Run 2022/23 (Sign-Up Closed)

if for some reason a weathered or even unweather full hilt becomes available please let me know or add me to the list if there ends up being any more! thank you
 
For anyone trying to affix their emitter without glue, I bought an expansion hole plug - basically a big rubber drum with a bolt and washers. It was for like 5/16 or something and the outside was exactly 1” or whatever the inside of the emitter is.

I cut it in half and drilled it out for a 3/8-16 t nut to match the rest of my saber rod

This is the size that my reference shows… maybe a little shorter actually.

I kind of want to find one without the holes in the top- do they exist?
 

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**UPDATE**

Hi everyone.

I just wanted to post another quick update...

I intended on writing a long post yesterday to explain where things are up to, but as you may have seen on Instagram, the last of the clamp parts arrived!

This meant that the day was spent going through everything and frantically preparing things to be taken to the platers early next week. (y)

I was scheduled to pick up the handwheel shoulders on Monday morning and drop off some of the clamp parts that I'd already received, but I've asked to move that back to Wednesday now to give me time to ensure everything is perfect with the clamps before handing everything over in one visit. It's a three hour round trip to the platers so it makes sense to get it all there in one go. (y)

The parts are looking great and it's very exciting to finally get one assembled.

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These are obviously all raw parts and yet to be plated. Really looking forward to seeing them after plating!

I'm going to spend the next few days checking over every last part, and cleaning up any blemishes or tool marks where necessary.

Then, on Wednesday morning I'll be dropping off the clamps and collecting the handwheels!

I'm expecting the T2 injection moulding samples sometime next week too hopefully, so I should have an update on those very soon. (y)

Prior to the clamp parts turning up, much of this week has been spent at the kitchen sink again. Masked up and working on blacking steel and darkening brass necks!

I'm pretty sure the neighbours suspect that I'm running some sort of meth lab at this stage:

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I'll be continuing with this next week. It's not something I can work on over the weekend with kids around obviously. It's very time consuming and not something that can be rushed as timings need to be kept to to ensure consistent results. The steel parts can be done a few at a time, but the brass parts need to be worked on one at a time. I'm getting through it though. I'm splitting my time between the workshop (where I'm working on thinning/stamping wind-vane rings currently), and the kitchen (where I'm working on finishes).

As soon as the clamp parts are in for plating, I'll be getting stuck back in to the above, and plan to have everything ready for when the clamps are finished (y)

Just to clarify something from the previous update as I had a couple of people ask the same question:

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The "Un-weathered" grenade in the above picture is the middle one. (y) The top one is "Machine Finish". All un-weathered orders will have the darkened brass parts and blackened steel as seen here.

A couple of issues presented themselves earlier this week with parts that were sold separately (for use with vintage parts). Thankfully, only a handful of people were affected and a solution has already been worked out. The few individual Flash hider/spacers that went out last week are now on their way back to me for re-threading. They have the correct thread, but the pitch (threads per inch) is ever so slightly off. It's VERY close, and results in less than one thread difference. It's enough to prevent it from threading fully in to a vintage booster though unfortunately. This was a shock and real source of disappointment for me personally!

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Luckily, it's very easy to fix and only affected a small number of orders. The correct thread die has been ordered and is on it's way to me as we speak. Due to the threads being so very similar, it should be a 2min job to rethread and won't result in any crossed threads. Visually, it'll be unnoticeable. Obviously any subsequent ones will now have the correct thread. (y)

This is just the latest in a long line of hurdles that this run has thrown my way over the past year. My first reaction is often panic/despair, but my wife likes to remind me that every problem has a solution! She's usually (always) right! :D

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In other news, I've ordered custom foam inserts for full hilt orders. I'm actually really excited about this! It means I can finally ditch the bubble wrap! The additional cost is well worth the benefits! The foam will be cut to the exact shape of the hilt and fits the heavy duty shipping boxes I already have. It will look more professional obviously, but will also massively speed up the packing process. Freeing me up to crack on with the job at hand! It's also less hassle for you as you wont have a mountain of bubble wrap to get through when your package arrives :)

I was hoping to get a little further with things this week and have more pictures to share, but the arrival of the clamp parts has meant that it's full steam ahead to get those to the platers as soon as possible!

As always, I'm very conscious of time, and the fact that it just seems to be slipping away exponentially! It's now over a year since I announced this run, and it feels like a lifetime ago! :lol: I have to keep reminding myself that the parts went in to production at the beginning of February, so it's not SO long ago in the grand scheme of things. It IS longer than anticipated though, so for that I really do offer my heartfelt apology, and sincere gratitude for your patience and support.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel though, and things are certainly coming together...

Thanks again for your patience and understanding everyone!

All the best, and MTFBWY!

Dave
 
Thank you Dave for this update

It IS longer than anticipated though, so for that I really do offer my heartfelt apology, and sincere gratitude for your patience and support

Don't worry Dave, in my opinion, this run and all the research work associated is already legendary in the history of the rpf so it is well worth the time to wait a little to enter the legend and get the most accurate handle ever made ! :)
 
As always, I'm very conscious of time, and the fact that it just seems to be slipping away exponentially! It's now over a year since I announced this run, and it feels like a lifetime ago! :lol: I have to keep reminding myself that the parts went in to production at the beginning of February, so it's not SO long ago in the grand scheme of things. It IS longer than anticipated though, so for that I really do offer my heartfelt apology, and sincere gratitude for your patience and support.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel though, and things are certainly coming together...

If it helps put it in perspective, you got this going and close to wrapping up in one year, it took me five to get through mine and with half your list! o_O
 
Thanks for the update. I am totally fine with the speed of the progress. It is interesting to see the parts in various stages of being finished.
 
Please put me down for interest. I would love to snag one if someone backs out or you have extras laying around. I won’t hesitate to purchase one!
 
How are things coming along DaveP ?
Hi Drew / Everyone

Apologies for the radio silence this past week. It was spring half term here in the UK and had a couple of days away from home with the kids pre-plan ed for this week. Back home now, but the kids are still off school until Monday.

It was an incredibly busy time the week before too as I had a long list of tasks I wanted to get through before our trip.

I'll be dropping a proper update next week, but in answer to your question (briefly).

Unweathered hilts are pretty much ready and waiting on their clamps/handwheels.

Some wind vane rings still require stamping, but that is on the list to be completed next week.

Work has started on commissions, focussing mainly on steel parts so far (Dings/rust/blacking).

Clamp parts are at the platers still and "in progress". These should be ready to collect very soon.

T2 injection moulded samples are scheduled to arrive (with me) on Monday (12th). These are the final set of samples now, having undergone a number of small but necessary improvements since T1. When I give them the go ahead on Monday (which I'm sure I'll be able to), the full run shouldn't take longer than a couple of weeks.

I'll go in to a lot more detail next week, with pictures, but that's pretty much where we are.

I'm aware that production has taken way longer than anticipated on this run, and the work involved on my side has been really quite daunting too (but not insurmountable).

Each and every part has required some degree of clean up/finishing by myself. It's a lot to get through, but I have a detailed plan of action, which I'm working my way through as fast as I can.

I appreciate that time is dragging on now and people's patience must be wearing thin. The end really is in sight though and complete hilts should be ready to ship in time for the final components arriving.

I can only apologise again for the extended lead time on this one. It's been a learning curve for sure and has forced me to rethink how I go about doing things going forward.

I'm really excited to share the next update later next week though. It will go in to greater detail on the above and should include pictures of the finished clamp and handwheel as well as an example of a fully assembled, unweathered hilt!

Thanks again for your patience everyone.

All the best and MTFBWY,

Dave
 
Dave, I can only speak for myself, but there’s no apology necessary from you. Thank you for the incredible amount of time and work you’re putting into this. I feel fortunate that you’re tackling this project and I get to be a part of it!
 
Another shameless “if a slot opens up cause someone who ordered lost their mind or became stupid then I’ll gladly take it” post.
 
**PRE-UPDATE UPDATE**

Hi Everyone. Just a heads up that the above mentioned update WILL be landing tomorrow evening.

Clamps are ready to collect and I'm heading over to pick them up tomorrow morning. There's a lot to write up so just a brief heads up for now, while I continue working on everything. I'd like to get some pictures taken of the finished clamps too.

Injection moulded samples finally arrived yesterday and are much improved. :) These are now in full production.

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I will go in to full details of the improvements tomorrow night after my road trip and once I have some pictures of the finished clamps. (y)

Thanks again everyone.

All the best,

Dave
 
**UPDATE**

Hi everyone.

As promised, I’d just like to update you all on the current status of the run.

This week has been an eventful one for sure, with both the T2 injection moulding samples arriving for approval, and the freshly plated clamp parts being finished in the same week!

I travelled over to the platers this morning to pick up the clamps. I’m very happy with the final results:

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As you can see, they’re REALLY shiny! Just like the early Folmer clamps

The T2 samples came in for the Handwheels/Pommels too this week, and they’re now looking great too:

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The reason for the extended lead time on the injection moulded parts, is that following the delivery of the T1 samples, I asked for some improvements to be made.

Hopefully you can understand why I decided to do this.

The T1 samples had very visible “ejector pin” marks from the original mould/tool design:

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I chose to pay an additional fee to have the tool altered. This obviously required some additional time also, which is why it’s taken until now to receive the final samples.

I’ve now OKed these and the injection moulded parts are now in full production! I’ve been given a delivery time of “early next month” which in the grand scheme of things isn’t too long as that could be as early as two weeks away.

Un-weathered hilts will be assembled and ready to ship out in time for these last few parts arriving.

With this in mind, over the course of the next few days, I’ll get shipping invoices out for the un-weathered hilts.

There is NO obligation to pay this until your hilt is complete and ready to send out, but it will be good for me to at least get these sent out ahead of time. It’s quite a big job in itself, so it will be one less thing to worry about.

Depending on how far I get with invoices, I may begin sending out invoices for Batch One commissions too as and when I find the time. Again, there is NO obligation to pay these until the work is completed. It’s just one more job that I can tick off my to do list, and It gives people the option to pay at a time that’s convenient for them if they do choose to pay in advance.

I did want to include some pictures of the progress I’ve made with the Batch 1 commissions this week, but time just ran away from me today. By the time I’d been to collect the clamps, got home, checked everything over and taken pictures, I didn’t quite have chance to get the parts I’ve been working on to where I wanted with them to be (or take pictures).

This will be the focus of the next update sometime next week. I’m really excited to show how things are going, but rather than showing semi-finished pieces, I’ll save this for the next one if that’s ok.

I’ll hopefully get a chance to complete a weathered clamp before the next update too and install it on to my test build. This will finally make it a complete example of a finished commission with no third party parts (except for the WannaWanga bubble strip and D-Ring of course).

I’m going to call it a night for now, but I hope you like the look of the newly finished parts and I look forward to sharing some more progress with you all sometime next week.

Thanks again for your patience everyone. I know I keep saying it, but everything is coming together now, and I can’t wait to get these out to everyone as soon as possible!

All the best, and MTFBWY-A!

Dave
 
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