Shipping status - basically ROCKIN'

[Doc B.]

Knowing that a lot of folks are still stuck at home (knowing this because we have been getting lots and lots of orders) we have been absolutely hammering to build inventory and ship orders as quickly as possible during the lockdown. At the risk of hurting a shoulder patting myself on the back, I invite you to look at our shipping status page.

https://bottlehead.com/bottlehead-kit-delivery-status/

Aside from a couple kits waiting for parts due in next week and about 20 Crack kit orders that date back to only ten days ago at the earliest (we will be working on those on Monday) we are staying caught up with your many orders - orders for which we are most grateful.

Bottom line is, now is a pretty darned good time to order a kit and not have to wait too long to get it. Our average shipping time of 4 to 6 weeks has been more like two or three weeks lately, and a few kits have even gone out in a couple of days. So far our suppliers have been running pretty close to a normal ship time with parts, so we hope to be able to maintain this lead time in the near future.

Obviously we can't predict how long this will last. Forewarned is forearmed. Thanks once again for all of your orders!

[jtori]

I want to express my appreciation to you, Eileen, Paul and other extended members of the Bottle head squad for the way you all are supporting order and parts delivery.  Also, the speed with which you respond to build questions. 

Because I live in Michigan, many normal activities are curtailed.  And, it looks like it'll stay that way for a while.  To remain vital, the tech enterprise I lead has needed to pivot and change the ways we operate.  I have found each phase of the process (woodworking, metal finishing and wiring) of building the Crackatwoa immersive and therapeutic.  At the end of my work day, I look forward to sipping a scotch, cueing up some tunes and firing up the soldering iron.  I know this kit build will come to a end soon and wish I had a couple more packed away waiting to be built. 

Thanks for what you're doing, and stay safe.

Best,

Joe.

[Doc B.]

Thank you so much, Joe!

[Thermioniclife]

Hi Eileen and Doc,
Hoping you are feeling better Doc. Holy smokes I ordered a Mainline 11 days ago and got a shipping email yesterday, wow that was fast! Looking forward to the build.
Thanks to everybody at Bottlehead for all the joy you bring to us. Stay well and happy.
Regards,
Lee

[Doc B.]

We are in even better shape as of today. Probably the most caught up we have been in 20 years. We have been hammering at Crack kits this week and will have shipped all orders thru May 13th this afternoon. More Crack kits will ship as soon as some parts arrive early/mid next week. One final straggler from a big batch of tape path kits that came in over the past two weeks is also shipping today with the arrival of some bearings it needed.

https://bottlehead.com/bottlehead-kit-delivery-status/

This week a big bunch of S.E.X. kit orders came in as well as Mainline and an Eros 2 orders (and of course those Crack orders just keep a comin'). We've been working on building up our parts inventory over the past few months and we have already started kitting those new orders while awaiting the few parts which should show up by the end of next week to complete them.

Now that we have settled into these semi-new digs for a few months and built our inventory we hope to be able to sustain this shorter wait time for a kit into the future. Thanks again to everyone for all of your support during this crazy time we are living in. Queenie and I really appreciate your keeping us so busy!

[Thermioniclife]

You bet your Bippy you guy's are Rockin!
Ordered a Mainline on the 4th just got it today! Warp speed.
I am in full " kid in candy store mode now "
Thanks Eileen and Doc

[Doc B.]

Thank you, Lee! Enjoy.

[WK3K]

Yes, a big here here to y’all! I sold my SEX and Reduction the first weekend San Francisco entered shelter in place and will leave quarantine with a brand new Stereomour and Eros. You guys did a great job of getting both kits down here fast and I really appreciated the help from Eileen and PB getting order and build questions answered.

I finished the Stereomour on Thursday night and had my first real listening session last night. I am so blown away. I can’t wait to wrap the Eros to see what this baby can do with vinyl, but I’m limiting myself to one section per day so that I don’t run out of build before lockdown ends. It’s been vital to mental health to disconnect from the world and focus on a project like this. I’m glad to have a hobby that allows me to be a responsible adult and WANT to stay home!

[Alexp]

Just wanted to chime in and say thank you for what you doing here. I just assembled my Crack/SB kit and I'm absolutely loving it, the sound, everything came out much better than I even expected. Building the kit brings up long forgotten memories of soldering my first simple things with my dad 30 or so years ago, simple joys of life at these uncertain times, sometimes it's all we need to keep our heads up. Keep up running, wish you guys the best and thank you!

[Doc B.]

Thank you, guys, for the kind words. It's certainly a challenge to keep from getting sucked into the anxiety vortex these days and we hope we are offering some distraction from the 24 hour news barrage. I had a talk with my son last night in which I realized I had become one of those boring old geezers who says "we saw it in the 60s and 70s, this too shall pass". Thought back about my folks telling me about the great depression and WWII when I was a little kid freaking out over getting nuked. I started first grade during the Cuban missile crisis (October 16th-28th, 1962) and right after a major hurricane had hit the PNW (Columbus Day storm, October 12th, 1962). I had had major separation anxiety from day one in September and pretty much cried every day for the first couple of weeks of school. Just as I got over that and was enjoying coloring pictures of the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria the storm and the missile crisis hit. The school had us practice duck and cover under the pretense that "another storm might be coming". Then next week they decided to practice moving us into the gym so we could all roast together. Then they changed the program into a practice run of sending six year-olds who lived within a mile of the school out on their own to try to walk home so they could get roasted or blown away with mom and dad rather than roasting with the other kids in the gym.

I lived in what at that time was a small suburban/rural community in the Willamette valley, Tigard. That walk actually turned out to be great fun and I pretty much walked to school when feasible for the rest of my education. Cooler heads finally prevailed and Americans and Soviets managed to keep the planet intact. Everybody hang in there, this stuff cycles and I think we are finally getting to the peak of the wave and starting to head back down to the pocket.

Enough old geezer stories (though if you're good someday I'll tell you about the time I watched the XB-70 fly over my house). On a more fun subject I prepped beau coup power cord kits yesterday and I'll be prepping another big batch of Crack kits to ship this week. Yesterday a Mainline and some repair boxes shipped out. Monday a couple of S.E.X. kits shipped. Also, one customer upgraded their StereomourII order to a Kaiju this week. I had pretty well kitted up the Stereomour already. So if you want a Stereomour with a short wait now is the ideal time to order. It's practically on it's way to you.

[pboser]

Okay, I'm game, Dan.  When you get a break how about you tell us the XB-70 story!
Be well and keep up the good work!

[Doc B.]

Not a huge story except that I have never met anyone else who ever saw the thing flying. I was a kid, would have had to be between about 9 and 11. In spite of everything you read saying that the XB-70 flew at 70,000 feet, when I saw it it must have been low enough that my pretty sharp kid's eyes could see it while standing in my back yard - at maybe 20,000-30,000 ft? And the fact that I was living about 12 miles south of Portland, OR seems odd too since I think it flew out of Edwards. On the other hand the thing went 2000 mph, so it probably had flight plans that went up and down the western states.

Anyway I can tell you that the delta wing and canards made it pretty darned clear exactly what aircraft it was - nothing else had that configuration at the time. And as a kid in the space age and into that kind of techy stuff, I had no doubt what I was seeing. I've also had the good luck to casually look up and see a B-1 flying over Seattle and a B-2 flying over Tacoma at low altitudes over the years. All those big evil looking bombers are about as close as I have ever been to getting that "just saw a UFO" feeling. The B-2 is particularly unnerving.

[pboser]

Wow, that's cool.  I know what you mean about unnerving re: the B-2 - after 9/11 there was a presence of military aircraft in my area at the coast of NJ, within sight of NYC.  One day a number of F-117As (I think) were around - of course, the unnerving feeling wasn't the UFO thing, but more the post-9/11 atmosphere.

[Doc B.]

Once again at the end of this week we are rockin' the kit shipments. Aside from one Kaiju ordered on the last day of May (and just waiting for the arrival of 300Bs) all kit orders thru May have been shipped and some kits have shipped well into June. Today we shipped Crack kits up to those that were ordered 4 days ago. Next week should see Eros, Crackatwoa and more Crack kits shipping, with Kaiju, Stereomour and BeePre kits following not terribly far behind them. Our primary goal these days is to carry this shipping time momentum for as long as we can. Thus Eileen and I are spending about 75-80% of our work time kitting and packing. That is not to say other things aren't happening. PB and I have started working on the next new kit manual, and there may be another session for that coming up next week.

I wish everyone a good weekend. We'll be hacking shrubs, pruning trees, digging weeds, painting trim and generally wearing ourselves out getting ready for a garden wedding at Chateau Bottlehead in September. If the damned chipper we ordered ever shows up we'll be rockin' sticks and branches too.

[Paul Birkeland]

I wish everyone a good weekend. We'll be hacking shrubs, pruning trees, digging weeds, painting trim and generally wearing ourselves out getting ready for a garden wedding at Chateau Bottlehead in September. If the damned chipper we ordered ever shows up we'll be rockin' sticks and branches too.

What's your crew's daily rate?