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Pen Shows

Back From Vacation, Can’t Make DC This Year! :(

Hi Pen Fans.

Just a quick note to make everyone aware that we’re back from vacation and well rested! I’m tackling my mountain of emails now, so if you are expecting a response from me, you’ll receive it today or tomorrow.

But the real reason for the post…this is a difficult decision, but we won’t be able to make the DC Pen Show this year.

Bottom line, a lot of you know that we’ve had new machinery arrive. I’ll try to keep this brief and not too technical, but these new machines don’t simply plug in and make pens! Besides rigging crews, tooling, setup, and a steep learning curve regarding operation, the biggest job is programming. These machines speak a different language than our old machines. So literally every program for every part for every pen has to be rewritten, proofed, tested, and then tweaked for fine tuning. This has proven to be a huge job. Much larger than I had expected. Right now, I’m about 20% done with the re-writing and re-programming process.

So this means that I’ve been doing consistently 10-12 hour days before vacation for about a month, and will continue to do so until I’m finished.

A pen show like DC typically takes 2-3 weeks of preparation in regards to inventory leading up to a very hectic weekend. Then we really don’t get back into our groove until about 1 week after the show.

So it just won’t be feasible this year for us. This is not an easy decision, as we truly enjoy seeing our clients live at the pen shows. Then even though the pen shows are very hectic and busy (especially DC) they are a ton of fun!

Once we are in full operation with the new machines, we’ll get things back to normal here.

Thanks!

Brian at Edison