Dear Puzzler Friends,
Let me give you an update about our progress with serial production of Jukebox. Regarding the challenges of polish paste removal from the mass amount of various bits and pieces, we have experimented with 2 professional ultrasound cleansing factories, as well as with an ultrasound cleaner device of our own. I attach a video of our attempts with the ultrasound device plus some before-after photos. I must say, the use of the ultrasound device by default was not the correct answer to our problem. Some parts seemed to be too sensitive to the high-frequency resonation, thus they needed some re-polishing (with the consequent polish paste all around again). After several attempts, we decided to test a plain degreasing rinsing cycle too. This seemed to work for parts having simpler shapes and small or medium sizes. However, for shapes of higher complexity (including recesses, pockets, engravings, etc.) or larger, sensitive parts (outer shell, front face, etc.), the best way to achieve highest grade surfaces was still to treat parts individually by manual cleaning and gentle rubbing in a detergent solution. This means a few thousand bits and pieces to be cleaned by hand, sometimes using a toothpick/ear cleaning stick/soft toothbrush, whatever the shape may require. So the work to be faced was not small at all, especially beside a daytime job. Anyways, I immersed myself into the task, and converted our bathroom into an artisan washing station 🙂 At times, I felt like an archeologist carefully removing dirt from the valuable artefacts 🙂 Let me share some non-spoiler photos and videos of the cleaning jobs behind me (a substantial amount still ahead of me). In the meantime, the nickel plating and anodizing works have also begun. I decided not to give any further approximations of timelines and deadlines. We are progressing with production the best way we can. One thing I can promise is that we are aiming at highest possible quality, equal to or better than the award winning IPP copy of the puzzle. Whenever the first ~100 copies are completed, we will ship them out. Then we will take a deep breath and focus on the next batch. We are limiting production at 200 copies altogether, so still another 39 copies to be sold in the near future.
I wish all of you a happy Festive season! Be prepared for some Jukebox vibes in the coming year 🙂
Cheers,
Daniel
MoonTree Puzzles
