We're back in black! - 3D Printing Service Re-opens

We're back! After 2 and a half weeks of herculean effort from our team, we're back with our full range of products with the printers ready to work flat out to fill orders. We're still clearing a bit of a back log and we're still a couple of printers down but we've got things in hand. The frames that are offline are due to come on stream in the next week and the ones that are running have more capacity than when we closed.

We are currently using emergency stop gap filament to print black but it's literally the best stuff you can buy so there aren't any concerns there. It will print until judgement day and is just lovely. We'd use it normally were it not for the obscene cost. Orange and dark blue remain unchanged and we've been able to build up a bit of stock of products in those colours while the entire suite now begins to catch up with black parts orders.

What's next? Well, as I said, we've got a couple more printers to bring back on stream in the next week. The parts for those will be here Wednesday so I'm expecting full operational capability by next weekend. That'll give me 80% of the printers (and capacity) I need to cut the lead time from 4 weeks to 2 weeks. From there, we've just bought a new configuration of extruder drive that will allow us to print using direct drive rather than using our current Bowden tubes. That will let us print faster, with more precision and less post processing to remove over-extrusion dribbles and strings. Once installed on our current frames, it should provide us the last 20% of capacity that we can use to drop the lead time permanently to 2 weeks. The best part is that it's built for exciting new materials like NinjaFlex and other flexible 3D printing filaments so we can really start to expand our capabilities in the next year or so. From there, it'll be a case of simply adding more frames to add to our capacity. We're pretty happy with the home-brew system we use and it's built to scale up perfectly to as many printers as we need.

It's been a long few months and I'm reasonably confident our bulk supplier has changed things up their end sufficiently to prevent a repeat of this mess. The breathing space this closure has given us has allowed for some serious upgrade planning in the next few months. With the new drives and a few other bits and pieces that we're working to bring to the suite, we're coming out of this in better shape than we came in.

Thank you again to everyone for their support over the last few months, it's very much appreciated.

Mike Harratt
Managing Director
Blastersmiths UK

Update II: 3D Printing Service Closure

In an effort to keep everyone up to date as much as possible, here's another update.

First the bad news: we received a shipment of filament from our supplier late last week. Upon inspection of the batch numbers, it was from the same contaminated batch that bricked the suite the first time out. Needless to say, we were exceptionally cautious about feeding it through our hot ends and so have left it in the boxes. Efforts to contact the supplier were slightly hampered by Green Cloaks E1 at the weekend. However, I've received an email in the last hour from our guy over at the filament manufacturer apologising and promising to get us a new, non-contaminated batch sent today. That means our bulk black should be here Monday. In the mean time, I've got a UK supplier I'm going to call to see if I can get some filament from them posted to us for tomorrow. That way, I can get black printing before the weekend and the re-opening of the service. Otherwise, we are printing happily in every colour that's not black.

And then there's the good news: we've been adding capacity as we go during the closure; tweaking bits and pieces. We've made some modifications and tweaks to our existing printers to vastly improve their foot print and with good quality filament, we'll be able to increase their speed too. That means even more capacity than we were expecting before the extra frames come online.

Thank you again to everyone for your support during this difficult run. We've been working hard to make best use of the time given to us by this closure. When we open again, we should have enough capacity to start development again and bring you shiny new things.

Mike Harratt
MD, Blastersmiths UK

Update: 3D Printing Service Closure

I just thought I'd post a quick update on how things are progressing at this end with regards to our printer services. We've managed to restore 50% of capacity at this stage and it's remaining stable. We're currently awaiting parts for the other 50% and that should come back on stream week beginning 25th April. In short, in terms of capacity we're on track to re-open on 1st May as previously predicted. I'm also going to return the Rapidstrike wiring kits to the site since we've got our main printer for those back and can produce those  very, very quickly. Given that colour for those doesn't matter, they're the first thing to return to the website.

We are, however, still stuck in terms of black filament. It was black that knocked us off line in the first place. We're down to our last half kilo of known good filament and our reserve supplier can't supply enough to feed the beast as it were. Our original supplier is still over-hauling their machinery and processes to prevent a repeat of this episode. That will take sometime, apparently. I've got kilo after kilo of orange and blue filament ready to go so if I contact you with regards to your order, you will very likely get an offer to change over to another colour free of charge. Of course, a full refund is still on offer if your order is delayed and hasn't been posted or we can delay your order until the black filament situation is resolved.

So yeah, that's how things are at this end. Thank you everyone for your messages of support. It means a lot to know we have such a great community behind us that'll stick by us even in the tough times. In return, we'll do everything we can to keep the communication channels open and keep people in the loop.

Thank you all again,

Mike Harratt
Managing Director
Blastersmiths UK

3D Printer Service Closure: 13th April - May 1st 2016

As of today, 13th April 2016, I am closing the Blastersmiths UK 3D printing service to new orders to retail clients until 1st May. Our resellers will still be able to order stuff but we will not be accepting website orders from the general public until the start of May.

I hate having to do these sorts of posts but it's for the best at the end of the day. We need some breathing room to fix some pretty serious problems that have occurred that have been out of our control. I've detailed why I'm taking this step but the tl;dr is I need to look out for my staff and to keep the promises we make to our clients who are good enough to trust us with their hard earned money.

I ordered on [date], when will I get my stuff?
Current orders will be processed in the order they were received but the lead times might be a little elastic and each individual client will be kept up to date via email as we go. If it looks like your lead time is going to breach, you will be the first to know. In all cases, the offer of a full refund is available, no questions asked, should you wish to take that option. The only caveat is that your order mustn’t been dispatched.

What the hell happened?!
3 things. First, we're in the process of replacing our old Prusa Mendel fleet with better printers that are more reliable, print faster and print the mirror finish that can be seen on our Stryfe tray expanders, among other printers. We're in the process of migrating as the old Mendels fail and become time sinks to repair. While those are being decommissioned, we're adding new MTW printers and working out the scaling bugs. That process is putting a lot of strain on our team who have to juggle printing actual orders with printing parts for printers and routine, preventative maintenance.

Second, we're getting hugged to death by orders - even when we're adding an average of a printer a month. We've received a large surge in the last couple of days and are already pushing at our 4 week lead time for printed parts in 75% of orders. With a migration in progress, it was going to be a stretch to cope even with adding extra capacity. With my team juggling that migration and adding extras, a brief closure is good for their sanity in the long run. :)

However, the straw that broke the camel's back was a filament supply problem. Our suppliers produced a batch of black that contained significant degrees of micro-contamination that accumulated in our hot ends and rendered 90% of our capacity inoperable in the space of a few hours. The process of clearing, repairing parts and sourcing new filament has taken a significant amount of our time (on the order of 2 weeks), obliterating our capacity in the process. With our team stretched as it is so we opted for some breathing room to give us time to sort this mess out. We have human beings at this end and their welfare is my first priority followed closely by keeping our promises to our customers.

With this brief closure, my team can focus on salvaging our current capacity and adding more while we work out the issue with our filament supply. We have enough known good filament in reserve to fill outstanding orders and an emergency alternative standing by if that doesn't cover everything. We've planned for this contingency for a long time and I'm sad to have to activate it.

On the bright side, once we're back on line we should have twice as many printers printing twice as fast.

Can I still order stuff while you're offline?
It's technically just the website that is closing so yes but your lead time will start on 1st May and will be six weeks - don't expect your stuff to leave us until mid-June. If you want to order stuff during the closure, drop us an email and we'll work via PayPal invoice. I hear you ask why can you take PayPal orders but not website ones? Well, we have some limited capacity available so we'll be able to cope with a lower order volume and closing the website should stop us getting hugged to death. This way we can balance keeping a core element of the business alive while being able to recover from quite a serious set of knock backs.

What about your other lines?
Tactical gear, embroidery work, springs and motors are not affected. However, please note that the part shipping rule still applies. We've got enough going on here in the office without needing to track half-deliveries. The more we do that, the more risk of something going wrong and we hate to disappoint our clients.

If you've any questions or enquiries then please don't hesitate to drop us an email and we'll have a chat. :)

Thank you to all our clients, partners and friends in the community,

Mike Harratt
Managing Director, Blastersmiths UK

Blastersmiths UK MOLLE Assault Vest

I wrote back in May about the Full Tactical vest. Well, LARP season and real life got in the way and it took a bit of a back seat. Testing continued and we were able to verify the design - it's probably the most tested thing we've ever done in hindsight. That prototype has been dragged through four weekends of solid use and it's still standing.

Well, it's finally here. After all that testing and punishment, it's ready to leave the nest and join Nerf wars around the world!

Our Assault Vest comes with 4 in-built magazine pouches with elastic tops with plenty of MOLLE for the addition for further magazine pouches, holsters or other MOLLE mounted elements.

Or yah know, as a knife sheath?

One of the key distinguishing features of the MOLLE Assault Vest is the sling loops. They have multiple uses, as Jangular highlights in his review but the intention is to use them to mount a single point sling with associated blaster.

The top 2 rows of MOLLE on each side of the 2 front panels are made from Velcro loop tape. This allows you to put Velcro hook tape backed morale patches and the like.

The back of the vest is completely covered in MOLLE webbing and allow for extensive customisation. There is also the space for embroidery. It is possible to replace several rows of MOLLE with a 180x180mm logo that you've had digitised using our custom embroidery service for an application fee of £10 inc VAT. If a smaller, more subtle logo is more to your taste, the sling loops themselves can be embroidered for a £4 inc VAT after you've had the artwork digitised with your logo.

The Blastersmiths UK Assault Vest can be purchased from our website from 14th January 2016 for £60 including VAT (a few colours and camouflages are a individually priced). Every vest is tailored made by hand here in our UK workshop. We will email you after your purchase to ask for your measurements, we'll then make it in your size. There is a little space for adjustment should your body shape change or if you'd prefer a looser fit.

Custom embroidery service now open!

We've always been committed to making tactical gear that people can truly call their own. Through custom sizing to 'made to order' & bespoke pieces, Blastersmiths UK have always gone the extra mile to help you make your kit suit you. In pursuit of that, we can now announce that we are launching our bespoke embroidery service as of today.

Take your own logo or artwork, pay for the tooling once and you can use your logo again and again across our entire range of tactical equipment! Your one logo can be replicated across holsters, dump pouches, magazine holders and even tactical vests. With only a nominal application fee per item after the initial charge for digitizing your artwork, our customers can readily stand out from the crowd with top quality tactical equipment that is truly their own.

Purchasing your first bespoke embroidered piece:

Custom logos can be put on all sorts of products!

First, there's the tooling. We take your digital artwork and turn it into a file that our CNC embroidery machine can understand. To get us to do that, head over to our Custom Embroidery Tooling page and select your number of thread colours. Add that item to your basket. Now, select your desired item from our huge range of made-to-order tactical equipment and add that to your basket, too. That first price includes your first application fee so there's no need to do anything extra. If you want further items embroidered with the same logo, select the 'Reuse' option on the Custom Embroidery Tooling page and you'll only be charged the application fee. We will rotate, scale and generally muck about with your design to get it to fit to pretty much anything. If we can't get it to fit, we can put it on another item in your order or will just straight up refund you the price of the tooling.

After you've ordered, we'll email you to ask for your artwork. Once we've got that, we can turn it into embroidery for you. We'll send you a digital render of the final layout for you to 'proof'. That's where you check spelling, layout and final colours. If you OK that, we can then proceed to making your stuff. We'll also provide you with a Unique Tooling Code (UTC) for each logo/artwork that you  agree to 'proof' so you can use it for future orders.

Reusing your tooling for future orders:
If you like your customised items then you can come back and select the 'Reuse' option on every future order and will only have to pay the application fee. Your tooling can be used time and again, just add Custom Embroidery Tooling with the 'Reuse' option selected and we'll email you to ask for your UTC. Don't worry if you can't find it, we keep a database of them here but it will speed up the turn around time for your order if you can provide us with it.

Stock logos and designs:

Stock designs allow for budget customisation

For those without a desired logo, we have a bunch of stock designs and logos that we can produce for just the application fee. From biohazard symbols for the HvZ players out there to simple skull and crossbones motifs, we've already done the tooling. We'll keep adding to that library as we go. The shopping process to add them to your gear is much the same as custom logos, just add Stock Embroidery Tooling to your basket with the desired pattern option selected. Again, if there are multiple items in the basket, we'll drop you an email to confirm what's going where. :)

Please note that due to the nature of the embroidery process, it's not possible to retrofit embroidery to extant pieces. We honestly tried but webbing and fittings get in the way of the embroidery hoops preventing the fabric from being held in-situ correctly.

Patches, name tapes, text only options and more
We're launching today with our custom logo service but we'll be adding more lines as we go. Plans are in the pipeline for custom webbing or hook tape name tapes for squad members and LARP characters. We're exploring the option of promotional merchandise (for both ourselves and Nerf groups) and of course we're working to bring a bespoke morale patch service, too. That'll likely be after Christmas now but we've got lots to be starting off with...

'Star-lord Quad Blaster' drop-leg holsters

Star-lord Quad Blaster - Source: Nerf Wikia

The Star-lord Quad Blaster is something of an under-rated, often ignored blaster in the Nerf community. Its single shot action with sub-par performance means it's often left out for better side-arms like the Hammershot and Strongarm. What it does have, however, is a certain style and it pairs very well with Star-lord cos-plays. We decided to make a holster for it.

We first made a set of holsters for the 'Star-lord Quad Blaster' back in 2014. One of our flat mates here in Bristol wanted a set to complete her Star-lord cosplay. We made them up and she wandered around MCM London back in October 2014 getting compliments on both the holsters and her general costume (with hindsight, should have given her some business cards to hand out!). We left them as a one-off item until a couple of weeks back when we received a request phrased to the effect of"This might be the weirdest thing you've been asked but..." I'm not entirely sure the client was prepared for us to come back with a "Yeah, we've done that, let me find my notes". :D

So we opened up the files, fixed a few bugs and ported the holsters from the old looped belt loops to our standard MkIV style loops fixed to a thigh strap. The blaster is still held in place by a 3D printed clip but it's much easier to release that the previous version. It's low profile when empty and holds the blaster perfectly secure when in use. The best part is that it retains all the sizing flexibility of our full fabric drop-leg holsters. The thigh strap is a full 30" long so chances are, it'll fit you there. The vertical belt loops have the better part of 8" vertical adjustment which is a lot when you consider your legs.

These are available now for £15 for one or £25 for a LH/RH pair (because, honestly, who really wants just one?) from our website. Prices include UK VAT at 20% so non-EU folks will pay £12.50 and £20.83 for singles and pairs respectively - that discount is automatically calculated at checkout.

This is the first release of a few to come in the next few weeks. We've been a bit quiet since the end of LARP season setting up new and exciting things that will be announced in the coming weeks.

-Mike
MD, BSUK