This has been an odd week. Last Friday the entire country has closed down for a week for the 'National Day' holiday to celebrate ostensibly, the moment when China effectively became a Commie police state. All well and good, but coming so soon after the Mid Autumn Festival it effectively means that China has suffered a second consecutive week of, I'll put it frankly, bone idleness. I can only apologise to my loyal customers since I have back orders to fulfill and although I have performed my end of the bargain with considerable aplomb, I am at the mercy of the sodding post office, whose vagaries are well documented and whose work ethic is so arbitrary that nothing short of a supercomputer running chaos theory algorithms can predict it.
So, in this interregnum between Summer and Autumn, I took time out to move home (precisely 20 doors down the road in fact), helped the old man relocate part of the existing factory to nearby Anhui Province and get on with some much delayed design work. Having done all of that, I did what any self respecting man would do when surrounded by temporary systemic national indolence, I joined them and went out to get pissed.
This evening I went for a beer with my mate, the paint chemist, we'll call him 'Bob'. Inevitably the conversation turned to the subject of the industrial crackle that I had him develop for me a couple of months back. I have been getting A LOT of mails regarding this stuff and I have had to say NO to all of you who asked. I have tried to ease the pain somewhat by revealing the Perfetto crackle technique and process but the industrial coat has gnawed at me for the past few months and my reluctance to offer it is mainly economics. I won't bore you with the details of it but needless to say, this stuff is NOT cheap and has to be implemented on an industrial scale (based on dead weight of the material to be painted) in order to be economical. You see, this stuff has its roots within the automotive industry and has to be, ideally, applied by robots and setting up the process is expensive and time consuming unless you have the clout of a major car manufacturer. Which I don't.
However, never one to take no for an answer, I proceeded to blag, bullshit and bully Bob, with the aid of copious amounts of Hennessy XO and the memory of an incident involving a Thai ladyboy, a large daikon radish and some live prawns, into doing a small run in his test lab. Rotting in hell not withstanding, I am now quite please to offer a small limited run of sonics in this wonderful industrial crackle for the price of £250 each.
Absolute numbers are a bit up in the air but depending on how many I can be bothered to strip down, I will say no more than 20 of each model MAXIMUM. Probably less, as Bob simply did not make enough of the stuff to paint more than that.
The initial test piece has been chucked around quite a bit and has not suffered in the slightest. It's more durable than the powdercoat and is virtually indistinguishable from the Perfetto coating. Considering a spare body will cost you upwards of £50 and a Perfetto repaint £30, having a totally ready painted one for £50 premium on top of the standard price is a nice little deal for a quite groovy upgrade.
Some of you have emailed me asking if I can repaint your sonics in this. The answer is categorically NO. This is mainly because it is not *just* the body that need repainting but the slider plate/button too. It is a lot of work to remove the slider plate/button for repainting and can and will destroy the electronics requiring a total rewiring. I am keeping this run separate and exclusive with a price tag to reflect this. If you want one and have purchased a standard one prior, I suggest you do what everyone else would do and Ebay it ASAP and use the proceeds to purchase one of these :-) Who knows, maybe you might sell it to someone who is gagging for one of mine but can't bring themselves to buy one from me.
Some of you have emailed me asking if I can repaint your sonics in this. The answer is categorically NO. This is mainly because it is not *just* the body that need repainting but the slider plate/button too. It is a lot of work to remove the slider plate/button for repainting and can and will destroy the electronics requiring a total rewiring. I am keeping this run separate and exclusive with a price tag to reflect this. If you want one and have purchased a standard one prior, I suggest you do what everyone else would do and Ebay it ASAP and use the proceeds to purchase one of these :-) Who knows, maybe you might sell it to someone who is gagging for one of mine but can't bring themselves to buy one from me.
So, if you want one, email me as these things will go quick and I don't forsee them becoming available again until 2012 at earliest. Since I tweeted this a couple of hours ago, I have 5 takers of Tennant versions so they are going...
Here's a reminder of what you are getting:
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