[GB] the Heavy Grail, a Norbauer housing for the HHKB

[norbauer]

@xli92149 We sent out an email to everyone with an open order last week—might want to check your spam folder and make sure shop@norbauer.com is added to your whitelist.

The full text of the email is below, but the short summary is that the injection molding factory has owed me the final batch of plates for many months now and still hasn’t yet delivered it. They have lots of plausible excuses and reasons for the insane delay, but it has definitely been frustrating and has delayed our timelines a bit. They’re now scheduled to run the last batch of plates just over a week from now. Everything else is done and waiting and as soon as the plates arrive to us we’ll turn everything around quickly.

I just wanted to reach out with a quick update on your Heavy Grail: Ghost of Christmas Future Edition order.

Final assembly has been held up by the plastics workshop having to pull our mold from production for some upgrades aimed at, among other things, improving surface finish on the polycarbonate plates where the ejector pins touch the back of the part.

This was only supposed to take a few weeks, but it took much longer than the factory had at first promised. (They hit some unanticipated technical hurdles in adjusting the mold to work with both polycarbonate and ABS parts.)

Those issues have now been resolved, however, and they’re just waiting for the mold to come back from Teflon application, which is the last step before going back into production around 11 July.

I’m still confident that we’ll be able to deliver a beautiful, endgame-worthy new home for your HHKB this summer (likely around the end of July), but I regret that it has taken longer than our original estimated shipping timeframe.

Thanks for sticking with us through these inevitable production hiccups. As always, I tremendously appreciate your support of my work and we’re always here if you have any questions or concerns.

Incidentally, this final batch of plates will leave us with some extras, and we’ve got some housings to go with in a couple of new finishes. Those should be offered before the end of the summer, and then that will have been the last batch of Grails.

[pengers]

New finishes?

[windfall]

Hold up. NEW FINISHES?

Excited to pick one up. Don’t really need a second one, but for a new finish I’d be willing to splurge for one.

[norbauer]

Well, technically old Norbauer finishes that are new to the Heavy Grail: Tactical and Aerospace (black and silver anodizing, respectively). I’ve been working for years trying to work out the kinks of anodizing quality control and I’ve finally figured out something that seems to get really good results. I’m only sorry it has taken so long to bring back these options. It’ll be a nice swan song for the Heavy Grail.

[windfall]

I’d definitely be in for a Tactical HG, maybe even a titanium version finished in Monolith if that was an option

[louuuuuuuu]

Took awhile but I think this is its final form:

[sicatron]

Hey, Ryan – on the topic of plates, do you plan on restocking extra black plates? I would consider dedicating a second plate to Des sliders (if extras were available) as I’m reluctant to drill into my only plate.

I’m also curious if the same update applies to other pending/open orders? I did not receive said email, but I am (eagerly) awaiting fulfillment of an Aperture case as opposed to GoCFE. Wanted to ask just in case I somehow missed the email. I can’t wait!

[baby_phil]

I also didn’t get that email. So it’s not just you.

[Atlas]

Thanks for the feedback, I ended up going with this one, available locally so I thought I’d just give it a try and it worked well

LiPo Battery 3.7V 2500mAh | Lightweight, Rechargeable Battery

I haven’t been very active in the community, been studying but the heavy grail is absolutely amazing and with the bluetooth mod it’s 100% my end-game board. I use it most of the time switching it out with my norbaforce every so often for a change or for gaming. Quick pic below

If anyone has any questions, my board is a total ship of ship of theseus now, deskey silencing rings, yang bluetooth mod and the heavy grail so the only thing that’s original is the domes and PCB. I used an extra old pro 2 I had as the donor so I still have my type-s to compare it to. Might replace the domes at some point but honestly it feels so good I’m not sure why I would bother

[dib_dubious]

@norbauer Thanks for all the work you put into this project. I finally got around to putting mine together and couldn’t be happier.

[norbauer]

My pleasure. I love those keycaps!

[ankit]

Well I guess my K2 is for sale if anyone wants it. This thing was fucking gorgeous in person.

[wonkie]

Has there been any new updates about the fulfillment of PC Heavy Grail and the april restock HGs?

[sicatron]

Hi @norbauer and Team - just wanted to say thank you for crafting such an exquisite work of art. Despite how photogenic it is, it’s somehow even better in person. 10/10.

[baby_phil]

I emailed them this morning and got this
“We’re currently performing QC and assembly. Order fulfillment will begin right after, so you should expect yours to be shipped out within the next couple of weeks.”

[Idaho]

Hi wonkie! My apologies for the late reply. As baby_phil mentioned, we plan to start shipping out orders that don’t have clear switch plates within the next week or so. Heavy Grail GoCFs with clear switch plates, on the other hand, would have to wait a few weeks more.

[norbauer]

@Idaho

Heavy Grail GoCFs with clear switch plates, on the other hand, would have to wait a few weeks more.

As @Idaho mentioned, we’ve been stuck in a seemingly endless cycle of tooling improvements that the factory has been making to get the best uniformity around the ejector pins on the back of the clear plates. They keep kicking the delivery date back a week or two at a time, several times in a row now. It sometimes feels like death by a thousand cuts, but I’ve been following their technical progress along the way that their explanations are credible. They’ve given us a no-really-for-serious-this-time ETA of the end of this coming month for those clear plates, and I think they’re actually likely to deliver. As always, we’ll keep chasing them up. Thanks for everyone who is still waiting for your patience on these last few remaining Heavy Grails.

[steelbone532]

Extremely looking forward to that heavy grail shipping notification!

[FlyingUdon]

To @norbauer and Team, Thank you for creating such a stunning piece of art, no words can explain how beautiful it is at every possible angle in person. The Heavy Grail is truly the holy grail.

[pixelpusher]

WOW