Manufacturing News!
about 8 years ago – Fri, Apr 08, 2016 at 11:09:54 PM

New Machinery!

These last two weeks have yielded some very exciting deliveries. Below are just a few of the machines we were able to order thanks to you guys and your financial support through this campaign. These machines will turn our snail's pace of a bag building process into a streamlined manufacturing shop.

Dies! Made of Steel!

We've received about half of our steel dies and are still waiting on a few more to arrive next Monday. These dies will be used with our 10 ton clicker press that we showed you in Update #9. They stamp out all of the leather pieces that are then sewn onto the saddlebags, which is great because if you look closely at our prototypes, you'll see our hand cutting skills are... less than perfect. We also bought dies for our key hooks and tool rolls. 

Our key hook die is in already, which means: good news! We were able to click tons of them out and use our new kick press (shown above) to finish them up with their matching antique brass hardware. These babies are shipping as soon as everyone has finalized their address!

Meet our Manufacturer!

We've been wanting to tell you about this part for a long, long time, but we had to wait until everything was official before going public. We'll be working with a small but mighty team called Tacoma Manufacturing to complete our saddlebags and tool rolls. Their factory is about 40 minutes south of Seattle, and over the last couple of months we've been visiting their shop to meet with the team and discuss the prospect of working together. Their manufacturing team critiqued our bag, helped us find ways to improve the way it's put together, and we've spent days down there building bags together to make sure we're all on the same page. 

So here's how it works: We'll be stamping out all of the leather pieces, finishing the edges and installing most of the rivets and snaps, and then delivering them to Tacoma Manufacturing where they will sew up the saddlebags. They've already started cutting all of the fabric and are cranking away on the first assembly steps. When they're all done, the crew down in Tacoma will send the bags back to us, and then we will send the bags to you! Simple as that. 

We'll be seeing a lot of Tacoma Manufacturing in our future, which is fine with us because we love hanging out with those folks. Below are a few photos from as far back as the beginning of the year, to as recently as two days ago. 

That's all for now! Manufacturing for saddlebags and tool rolls is underway and on track for delivery in May. As always, email us with questions at [email protected] and follow along with our day-to-day progress @pack_animal on Instagram. Also—keep tagging us in your Pack Animal camp mug and t-shirt photos! 

Good news! Shipping and Receiving!
about 8 years ago – Fri, Mar 25, 2016 at 09:32:49 PM

Hi guys! We have some exciting updates we want to share with everyone.

Shipping!

First of all we have officially shipped all of our $15 and $30 rewards! If you ordered just a camp mug, or just a t-shirt, your reward is on it's way! This is exciting for us because it means our first tangible goods are on their way out into the wild. We had some fun with the packaging, and we hope everyone enjoys opening their goodies when they arrive!

This is also important on a practical level because it means all of the systems we've been setting up to handle packing and shipping are working. Shipping is complicated and a lot of projects run into problems and delays when it comes time for them to ship goods. 

Receiving!

We just received all of our brass hardware—110 pounds of solid brass in antique finish. Also, right this minute there is a truck headed toward Seattle with our final shipment of fabric—over 700 pounds of the finest waxed cotton. Hallelujah. 

In Chicago, there is over 2,000 square feet of Horween leather on a pallet scheduled to ship out Monday. This puts us in a good position to hit our schedule goals for production and shipping.

Key Hook Production

Since we have our hardware on hand now, as soon as the leather is delivered we will start processing all of the key hook orders. Our estimated delivery for key hooks was May, but we think we can beat that schedule. And, when we ship key hooks, we will also ship out "the goods" bundles for everyone who pledged $100 and selected a T-Shirt, Camp Mug, and Key Fob.

That's about it for updates. A few of you have been texting and messaging us personally today with photos of your Pack Animal camp mugs as they've arrived at your door, and WE LOVE IT. Seeing this stuff in your hands makes us happier than pretty much anything else in the world right now. 

Would you do us a favor? If you post a photo of your mug or t-shirt to Instagram or Facebook, could you include the hashtag #packanimalcampmug or #packanimalgoods? We want to see your photos!

Thanks, friends! Talk to you soon.

UPDATES GALORE
about 8 years ago – Fri, Mar 18, 2016 at 10:44:46 PM

Hello, friends. We have updates!

First and foremost, if you ordered mugs or t-shirts and your shipping address has changed at all since you first sent it to us, you have until Monday to let us know. We bring this up because...

MUGS! 

Our camp mugs just arrived at our door and we want to send them to you! They're black and beautiful and great for sipping things, we tested them.

T-SHIRTS!

Andrew at Broken Press (across the canal from us in Seattle) just finished screen printing our pocket tees! They're soft and snuggly and you're never going to want to take it off. We tried them on to make sure. 

SADDLEBAGS & TOOL ROLLS

As of this week our (nearly 100) hides of leather are drying at Horween in Chicago, IL and they're due to ship next week. 75% of our fabric is on hand, so when the rest of that arrives we'll be able to send it off to our manufacturer! We're on schedule to begin manufacturing saddlebags the first week of April, to be shipped to your doorstep in May. 

That's all for now! Don't forget to step away from your screens and enjoy the weekend.

Materials, Schedule, Road Trip Guide!
about 8 years ago – Mon, Mar 14, 2016 at 03:51:12 PM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

Survey Reminder and Production Update!
about 8 years ago – Sat, Feb 06, 2016 at 07:04:35 PM

Hi! We need your survey responses.

If you've already responded to your survey, thank you! If you haven't been able to yet, no worries, it's not too late. We are trying to lock down survey responses by February 15th. If you haven't responded yet you will be getting a reminder email today with a link to your survey in it.

If you've already responded but want to make a change or purchase an add-on it's not too late for that either. You'll be able to edit your responses up until February 15th.

If you're not sure about the measurement questions for mounting hardware, please visit the mounting guide and email us at [email protected] with any questions. We are trying to respond quickly and personally to everyone. Feel free to ask us anything!

If your address will change in the next couple of months, no worries! Before we ship your rewards we will send you an email and you'll have the opportunity to update your address. 

Production Update

Exciting things have been happening around here. The travel mugs are on order, and we're about to place a T-shirt order based on the survey responses we have so far. We've also been busy ordering all of the things we need to make the bags — hardware, waxed twill, leather. We've also begun to purchase some of the equipment we need to increase our production capacity– more on that soon!

The Road Trip Guide is getting more of a professional polish than we really planned to do on it, but we're perfectionists and couldn't help ourselves. 

The One Moto Show

Are you going to be at the One Motorcycle Show in Portland next week? We will! Be sure and say hi if you see us, but also be sure to check out our blog post about the show with photos from last year's event.