Febuary 4th
The pre-order page for the Stingray will be open by Wednesday of this week. There has been some delay in getting the page up on our site because I want to provide as much information about the process to customers at the time they place their pre-order as possible. We had quite a few communication problems last time with our MMT “Blackwater” pre-order. Since then a number of new processes have been put into place such as the online Order Status Portal and offering a Swiss Made option that I hope will make the pre-order experience more pleasant and organized. While I doubt I have forseen every possible potential problem I want everyone to know that I have made every effort to improve the process.’
I have a bunch of e-mails to send out but won’t be able to do so until I get back into the office on Monday afternoon. Thanks for your patience.
February 1st
At this time I have to push the lead times for custom watches out to 16 weeks. The reason that the lead times have jumped so suddenly is because I am almost out of 2824 movements and I will be taking some time off in April/May right after the Basel show. The remaining movements that we have on hand are going to be reserved for the upcoming Stingray launch so that we can minimize any delays before our next movement order is due in from ETA in June. The movement delivery timetable gave me a natural window to take my wife and daughter to visit my in-laws. So tentatively we will be “out” between April 11th and May 20th. I do expect the lead times to naturally come down to a more normal level as April approaches.
Below are two custom MMT “Blackwaters” that we just shipped out. I’ll post pics of two Seikos that we finished in a little bit.
The pre-order page for the Stingray will be going up probably later today. I didn’t get to finishing up the page today.
Mk II Stingray Update: Stingray 50
The first sample dials arrived earlier this month. The dial needs a minor adjustment but the quality of the print and lume look very good. The date window was stamped using the wrong specs so the date window is too far away from the center of the dial and the window itself is a hair too big. Those issues will naturally corrected before mass production. The current view of the watch somewhat minimizes the misalignment. The design itself is one of the most readily identified with the vintage Blancpain “Fifty Fathoms” name and was featured on a number of military issued pieces in a wide range of different case styles in the 60s and 70s.
I placed the date window at 4.30 because it minimizes the impact on the symmetry of the overall design. While purists would argue that the original design didn’t feature a date display I feel that utility has to take priority. The final date wheels will be black with white text to further tone-down the date window. One of the primary reasons that I chose to have the text printed vertically is so that left-handed customers or those that choose to wear their watches on the right hand will have an easier time reading the date. I have heard from a number of left-handed customers that they generally dislike the traditional 4.30 date window orientation because it is awkward to read from the right wrist.
“Stingray 50″…no this isn’t a typo and you aren’t seeing things. There are two bezels for the Stingray that will be almost identical except for one detail. The bezel insert for the Stingray 50 bezel is smaller in diameter than the 60 but the bezels are the same overall diameter. There have been so many different “Fifty Fathoms” that I couldn’t really pick just one style that I wanted to work with so I choose a sample of three vintage styles. I had calls from customers to work with the “big-bezel” version, hence the 60, but in my humble opinion the very first bezel version from 1953 is the most elegant. So despite is similarity to the 60 I decided to offer this version as well. If the 50 and 60 bezels cause too much confusion I will only offer the more popular of the two after the pre-orders are completed.
In a few days we will begin taking pre-order deposits for the Stingray on the main Mk II site. Since there are still a few items outstanding, such as the hands and other options, those interested won’t be asked to select any options just to purchase a “place-in-line” so to speak.
The final hands for this dial will be arriving in February so I will post another update once those are in. I literally just received the first trial run of the acrylic inserts and after I have a chance to experiment with them I will report back on the feasibility of this option. In the meantime let me know what you think of the way the project is shaping up!
Recent custom Seikos
After fighting with the camera and my photography for a number of years now I can’t tell you how excited I am to finally be producing photos that truly compliment my work. Attached are two photos of Seikos that I finished recently. I wish I had had the set up that I do now three years ago but at least the last group of Seikos that I will be working on will be catalogued the way I had always hoped. But at least I will be able catalog our up coming product launches as well as the current MMT and QUAD10 watches as new versions are finished for customers.
Since I won’t be offering the Seikos directly any more and I have decided to limit our strap options to one or two styles as soon as our current stocks run out I am listing recommended sources for watches and parts that we won’t be offering. The vendors listed are people or companies that I have done business with for quite some time and/or have a good reputation in the wider watch community.
Thanks to Jaimie (aka SOXC) we have a new SPAM filter too so once again readers will be able to post on the blog.
January 9th
I know this isn’t what many of you were exactly waiting for but we have made some more investments into lighting/photographic equipment. I hope that this time around with the Stingray when it begins to ship and with future Blackwater orders that we will be posting more actual photos of the watches that we build for customers. The problem that I have had for quite some time is being able to take consistent photographs quickly. Finally after doing quite a bit of research over the holidays we gathered the equipment that finally looks like its doing the trick.
In the photograph below is a picture of my own personal MMT. It features the Sea Serpent hand set which I hope that I will finally get around to posting on the site for sale in the next few weeks. The big thing for me is that finally the picture of the hands actually reflects the actual color orange and didn’t take hours of post-production clean-up and fiddling. The additional Stingray photos that will be going up soon will benefit from better quality and more realistic representations than in the past. Moreover we should be able to produce more of them. I hope that you will enjoy the picture attached below.
Stingray 60 by Mk II
Introducing our homage to one of the first dive watches ever produced, the vintage Blancpain Fifty Fathoms. Shown below is the new Stingray 60 case with our Type I date dial and Type I hands. Two new dials and handsets are currently in production for this watch that will emmulate vintage styles of this historic design. In keeping with our custom watch philosophy the watch has been designed to work with all of our 28 mm dials and compatible hand sets. In addition to new dials customers will be able choose from several bezel and bezel insert designs.
For those that have been asking, pre-orders at a discounted rate will be accepted beginning in January of 2007, at which time the main e-commerce site will be updated. Delivery is expected to begin around May/June 2007. Customers will be able to pre-order either Swiss Made or Custom Mk II Stingrays. The Swiss Made Stingrays will be offered with a specific dial and hand set combination but customers will be able to select a bezel and bezel insert of their choice. Custom customers will be able to select their dial, handset, case finish, and bezel/bezel insert style.
Please stay tuned for updates and additional details about this latest offering. The first dial design will debut in the coming weeks.
Updates: December 5th
Things have been quiet here on the surface at Mk II. Behind the scenes I have been hard at work preparing for the holiday season, delivering orders, putting into place new procedures to improve customer service and developing new products for 2007. The new year will bring two new Mk II watch models (more on that later) and new offerings for the Seiko parts line. Pictures of the case for the much anticipated Fifty Fathoms homage will be posted tomorrow. As for the Seiko parts line many of you have been very patient with me but its been too long since we introduced something new. In the coming months we will be asking for customer input regarding new designs and parts for the Seiko product line.
The new year will also bring some hard choices for me. After much thought I have come to the realization that I will have to stop offering custom Seikos directly. Instead Mk II will continue to design and offer parts only. As much as I love the Seiko watches as a platform for customization given their versatility, quality and ruggedness the watches just require more time and resources than I can afford to dedicate as the business continues to grow. I hope that by doing this I will be better able to expand the dealer network to other regions, take better care of the dealers that I currently have, and leave me more time to expand the parts offering for Seikos. The last day to order custom Seikos directly from Mk II will be January 15th, 2007.
In recent weeks I have fallen off the pace a little bit when it comes to deliveries due to the holidays and my daughter catching something from her cousins when they visited over Thanksgiving. Production is now gradually getting back on track. Thanks for everyone’s patience.
Sept. 12th
I am pleased to announce that the new order status portal is up and running. Customers can now check via the online system the status of their orders here:
http://www.blogmkiiwatches.com/csportal/orderstatus.htm
All orders placed should have received an e-mail with a PDF copy of their sales order attached within 24-48 hours, on average, of placing their order. With your sales order number and combined with the postal code from you billing address on file with Mk II you will be able to review the status of your order and check in for messages. To read more about the the order status system see the FAQ at the bottom of the page referenced in the link above. The order status system has been updated with all of our current open orders to date.
We that hope that this new feature will be a welcome enhancement to your Mk II custom watch experience.
Addressing order update communication delays
I will be taking some time away (couple of hours) from working on watches to formalize my “production” schedule. I will then do the following:
* As a temporary measure I will e-mail everyone with an outstanding order with a PDF file attached with a copy of your sales order. I will list a very rough estimate of ship date. This may take up to the rest of the week since there are a number of orders and I will try to take the time to make the estimates as realistic as possible.
* As a more long term measure I have contacted a programmer that will be writing a customer interface for me that will allow you to look up your sales order number and see the current status of the order based on the production schedule that I will organize. A web based solution is ideal since e-mails can be trapped by SPAM filters and PDF files can be corrupted when they are sent.
* My long-term hope is that my software provider (web store guys) will take up my suggestion and allow customers to view their open orders online through the account history section of the site. Currently one can only see orders that have been invoiced and completed which isn’t terribly useful for me any way. I got a non-commital we’ll get to it when I mentioned it to them two weeks ago.
This was going to be addressed after the current backlog was worked down more but given the feedback that I have been receiving from a number of customers I will be moving this to pretty much the top of my list of priorities.
Thanks for everyone’s patience.
QUAD10 Preview Function
The QUAD10 ordering page has now been updated with the preview function. Now it is possible to see what your QUAD10 will look like before completing your order.
Some of the limitation are similar to that of the MMT preview function. Specific limitations to the current version of the QUAD10 page are:
* Bead blasted case finish is not simulated
* Crystal appearance is not simulated
The red/black date wheel is listed on the site as an option now but the date wheels will not be in stock until mid-March.