Chris, I never had any intention of not taking care of you. You let your admittedly irrational behavior get the best of you again.
I was on the fence as to whether or not to chime in. I like Chris. I like Kurt. I have no desire to get in the middle of a fire fight or to make anyone upset. That being said, I have opinions and decided to share them.
This leather order was not a small amount of money, even to the initial
investors who got a very, very good price. Let me dwell on that point for a moment: When I signed up for the project, I wasn't even aware that a business was to be formed from it. I thought this was solely a fan project, just on a very large scale. I did not know at the time that I was essentially an investor in a startup. It's quite possible that you didn't even know that at the time.
Regardless of whether the vendor is Kurt the fan or Reel Images the company, this was, in my opinion, a business transaction where certain expectations were set. The buyers had a reasonable expectation of getting a product of a certain quality, and in a certain timeline.
Some people, particularly those in the first wave, did not get what they expected, and as such have a right to be upset. If Chris feels that the product he received is not what he expected, it's not unreasonable for him to ask for replacements / refunds / etc...
Since this transaction did not include any clearly defined terms with regard to buyer satisfaction, where it goes from there is pretty open ended. As the vendor, you can choose to be a hero and make it right, you can choose to tell the customer that all transaction is final and to have a nice day, or anything in between.
In this case, as the vendor, you told him that you would help him to become happy with his product. You made that choice, which I think is a great thing. The fact that 4 more months have passed after the 8+ months that went by leading up to the initial delivery may be unavoidable, but you have to appreciate that he's not going to be happy about it.
I'm sure that if you step out of the role of vendor and think as a customer you can see that it must be quite frustrating to him.
In my mind, reputation is not a person's successes, it is how he/she handles failures. Those are the memories that stick with me. Taking the "low road" with lawyers and slander accusations is going to leave far more of a mark than hundreds amazing suits in the world that wouldn't exist without your work.