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Rockwell Model T Razor and Razor Blades - Shaving, Perfected

Created by Rockwell Razors

A revolutionary razor providing a close and easy shave, adjustable to everyone's skin and hair, with no cartridges or subscriptions!

Latest Updates from Our Project:

August Update - Production Under Way!
over 6 years ago – Tue, Sep 05, 2017 at 12:48:01 AM

Dear Backers,

It’s been a very productive month since our last update! As you may remember from the last update, I was meeting with our manufacturer to review the razors that were assembled using the updated fixtures in early August. From that assembly, we learned that the parts were dimensionally within tolerance over 98% of the time (a 2% reject rate for a project of this complexity is fantastic. However, we discovered that fractions of millimeters of “wiggle room” within the fixtures were causing compounding assembly problems around the T-Bar and the Top Doors. Put simply, this was resulting in a minutely bent razor blade in a small fraction of assembled razors, which unfortunately still put us outside an acceptable reject rate for mass production, completed products.

That being said, we’re actually coming to backers today with good news! Since that early August assembly, we’ve update the fixtures one final time to fit the head pieces and the rod as snugly as possible during critical stamping procedures in assembly (which has been made possible only recently with the further improved tolerances of the T-Bar component). Pictures of the updated fixtures are below:

And finally the good news: the test production at the end of August (basically a “retry” of the early August assembly except with updated fixtures) has been our first success, meaning we’re proceeding with the full production as outlined in the last update! The only thing that’s changed is that we’re now expecting the first 1000 razors to ship approximately 4-5 weeks from today, with the following razors following closely behind (still on the end-of-November schedule that we mentioned in the last update).

It’s been quite a rollercoaster month for us, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to be in the home stretch of bringing this incredibly exciting innovation to market. We hope everyone is as excited to be amongst the first people in the world to try a Model T as we are to begin shipping! Thank you again for continuing have our back, and please reach out to us at [email protected] if you have any questions about production before the next update in late September / early October (unless you get a tracking link before then!)

Gareth
Co-Founder, Rockwell Razors

July Update - Checking the First Batch & Shipping Timelines
over 6 years ago – Tue, Aug 01, 2017 at 01:37:33 AM

Dear Backers,

We have great news regarding the progress of production and assembly! Before we dive in, it’s come to our attention that a number of backers didn’t see last month’s update, and the awesome pictures of the first Model T’s that have been coming off of production, so I’ve included those pictures again below. The chroming feels even better than it looks, and the stress-testing over the last month is indicating to us that the chroming is like nothing you’ve seen before: incredibly durable and resistant. We can’t wait to get these razors into your hands!


Production and assembly of the first batch is nearly complete! I will be meeting with our manufacturers all of next week to review each and every razor that has been produced up to this point for fit, finish, function, dimensional accuracy, and shave quality.

Pending the complete approval of this first batch of Rockwell Model T, we will proceed with the following batches of manufacturing, which we expect to advance with much greater ease than this critical first mass production/assembly. Our manufacturing partners, engineers, and I agree that this careful batch process is critical to ensure the quality of the razors, as it allows consistent chroming tone and quality along with precision assembly and subassembly of each component / family of components for this extremely complex razor.

The fantastic news is, pending the approval of the razors I inspect next week, we should be able to begin shipping within four or five weeks! We’ve learned immense amounts about shipping from our previous crowdfunding campaigns, and expect that shipping out these razors in batches will make for an even smoother process. This will also provide the advantage of not overwhelming our logistics partners with too many thousands of orders at once (which can create errors in even the most sophisticated of logistics operations). The first shipping batch will be approximately 500 White Chrome Model T’s shipped in the order of backer’s numbers.

After the shipping of this first batch of razors is complete, we expect to begin shipping the following batches soon after, and shipping would be entirely complete by October or November. Providing absolutely hard-stop dates in the past has enabled/encouraged rushing and increases the risk of shipping mistakes, so thank you in advance for your understanding around “October/November” as our best current shipping timeline estimates!

Finally, following batches will be larger than this current first batch. We want to do this right, and we want you all to receive a razor that will last multiple lifetimes - these timelines will allow us to make that happen. I truly appreciate your patience and thank you for your support for innovation - I can assure you it will be worth the wait.

Stainless Steel Model T

As some of you may know, we've been exploring the option to manufacture an alternative version of the Model T out of stainless steel using CNC (computer numerical control) for a small subset of backers that were interested in a stainless steel option. After extensive exploration of options by our engineers and manufacturers both domestic and abroad we’ve found CNC for the 14 applicable parts to be simply prohibitively expensive. We’ve engaged a MIM specialist firm to better understand if there are small tweaks we could make to the Model T design files that would make it “manufacturable” via metal injection moulding at some point in the future. However, at this point, any possible Stainless Steel Model T would be rolled out in a separate campaign so we could properly gauge interest. However, we would encourage any backers interested in the Stainless Steel Model T to retain their pledge on this campaign, as we’ll be offering backers of this campaign a colossal discount on any Stainless Steel Model T we’re ultimately able to manufacture. We understand there are some passionate shaving enthusiasts that are backers of this campaign, and we’re eager to do whatever it takes to eventually make your “dream razor” - a twist-to-open, fully adjustable, fully stainless steel safety razor!

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Thank you for continuing have our back! Please reach out to us at [email protected] if you have any questions about production before the next update on August 25th

Gareth
Co-Founder, Rockwell Razors

June Update - New Production & Chroming
over 6 years ago – Sat, Jul 08, 2017 at 12:26:49 AM

Dear Backers,

Thank you for your patience while we prepared this update - I’m excited to announce we have initial pictures from the new production!

New Production and Assembly

Initial production and assembly has been extraordinarily successful as you can see from the fit and finish of the parts in the below pictures. I want to pull particular attention to the fantastic results that are being produced on the production chroming - I'm confident this chroming quality will exceed all your expectations. The thick, durable chroming is a result of the optimizing of materials for each part, and our internal stress testing indicates this chroming can be expected to last generations - we think you’ll be thrilled with the results!


The above pictures are of the White Chrome finish. We'll be sharing additional pictures of Brushed Chrome and Gunmetal finishes as soon as possible!

Assembly is one of the more important parts of the Model T production. We've learned that even if part production is executed perfectly, variance and slight error in assembly can result in performance issues with the razor. The solution to this is simply to take additional care and quality control steps in assembly. Rockwell Razors is committed to producing incredible quality no matter what and providing exceptional customer care, and we will be upholding that standard as we work on the assembly of the Model T. With that said, we'll provide an update with more precise shipping dates in our update toward the end of July. Thank you for your ongoing support! 

Stainless Steel Model T

As some of you may know, we were exploring the option to manufacture an alternative version of the Model T out of stainless steel using metal injection molding (MIM) for a small subset of backers that were interested in that option. After rigorous exploration and testing of options by our engineers and manufacturers both domestic and abroad, we weren’t able to find any solutions to manufacture using MIM that would meet our quality and performance targets. We’re currently investigating some options apart from MIM that would work to produce a Stainless Steel Model T for those backers interested and we’ll provide more information on that next month. If you have any specific questions about the Stainless Steel Model T, please direct them to [email protected] and I’d be happy to help so that the discussion on the Kickstarter comments board remains focused on the Model T product currently in production.

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Thank you for having our back! Please reach out to us at [email protected] if you have any questions about production before the next update on July 28th.

Gareth
Co-Founder, Rockwell Razors

May Update - Mold Success & Final Adjustments
almost 7 years ago – Mon, Jun 05, 2017 at 08:58:05 PM

Dear Backers,

Thank you for your patience while we prepared this update! I’m happy to announce it’s been a very productive month - let’s dive right into it:

New Mold Completion & Testing

The molds were completed in the last month, and overall we’re extremely satisfied with the parts that they are producing. The chroming quality we’re seeing is exceptional, and we’ll be sharing pictures of the new Model T in the upcoming June Update. Only one problem arose in the testing of the new molds, and that was related to the “T-Bar” piece of the Model T. We’re confident we’ve already designed a solution to this problem, which we’ll get into below:

Stainless steel rod (left) and T-Bar (right) parts, with the "male" component of the T-Bar circled in red
Stainless steel rod (left) and T-Bar (right) parts, with the "male" component of the T-Bar circled in red


The stainless steel rod is an integral part of the Model T’s adjustment mechanism. The T-Bar “male” portion (circled in red) must fit perfectly parallel with the “female” insert at the top of the stainless steel rod. If this connection is off by even 1 degree or several thousandths of an inch, it will result in a minute skew in the fit of the razor head, changing the blade gap (and the shave performance) of the razor. In testing, the parts were kept within the +/-0.002” tolerances we required, but even this tiny variance unfortunately didn’t produce the standards we are expecting for the Model T.

Our solution is a slight modification to the mold to widen the “male” portion of the T-Bar, and then to use precision machining to produce exactly the dimensions we require in an extremely replicable manner. We’re anticipating this will address the final hurdle before we can proceed with full production and will have more news on this in the June Update!

Stainless Steel Model T

We had hoped to have more news on the viability of this project in this update for the subset of backers potentially interested, but the degree of precision required to cast the head components (especially the doors) require significantly more evaluation than originally expected. We should be able to cover this in the June Update.

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Thank you for all your ongoing support! Please reach out to us at [email protected] if you have any questions about production before the next update on June 30th.

Gareth
Co-Founder, Rockwell Razors

April Update - Progress on New Molds
almost 7 years ago – Mon, May 01, 2017 at 12:03:44 AM

Dear Backers, 

We’re working away on getting some fantastic razors shipped out to you, so I’ll keep this update short and sweet. 

Address Changes 

I get a number of backers asking about this every week, so I figured I’d include my response in an update: if you need to change your address, that’s no problem at all! Just send me a Kickstarter message or an email letting me know your new preferred shipping address and I’ll make the change in our system. 

New Mold Completion & Testing 

We’re in the later stages of the new head molds now, and we should be able to share good news about the test production in the May Update. All the completed, chromed machined brass parts are being stored individually and securely to prevent any damage in the months while they wait for the new head pieces. 

Stainless Steel Model T 

We’re still working out some of the finer points of the potential molding process for the stainless steel head pieces, which need to be finalized before we can provide any timelines for the potential timelines of a Stainless Steel Model T. Ultimately, about 14% of backers between Kickstarter and Indiegogo indicated interest in a Stainless Steel version which should be sufficient to proceed with the additional project. We should be able to provide significantly more detail on this in the May Update. 

Thank you for all your ongoing support! 

Gareth
Co-Founder, Rockwell Razors