...exactly like this....may be SE will sell the Patents....everything is possible....

...ok, thank you for information, SE is overworked, you say, didn't you?.....

...then I'm very reassured, because I ordered an Alto last August and paid the deposit. There was talk of a waiting period of 14-16 months, possibly longer....

One problem is patents only have a term of 20 years, many of the patents are expired.
a quickie USPTO search on inventor is only showing me 3 live patents (and a bunch of expired ones)
US-8324489-B1
US-8183447-B1
US-7629521-B1
(looks like railboard and 4 way truss).


stick.com used to have a patent list, but that's 404ing

SCUBA training has a conundrum that is similar [training models have changed from back in the day, it's a lot more phased...small steps now]
One one hand, you don't want people misadjusting things they are breathing out of
OTOH making things a "black box" can tend to
- make people fear their equipment.
- create a situation where divers don't recognize issues before they become problems
- have divers not fully understand the ins and outs of maintenance
- obscure the line of when advanced service is needed

Most training agencies offer a "gear technician" class. Which isn't regulator repair tech, but helps cover those areas. Maybe a similar model would be appropriate

Maybe some comprehensive "care and feeding" materials ("Chapman Stick Technical" manual or something) or training classes at the seminars , or maybe as a special seminar
I doubt I'm alone in being used to paying more for technical manuals than operating instructional materials (hey, the DM's Guide was always more expensive than the Player's Handbook!!! ) and would gladly do so

It could keep sticks in the field in better condition and maybe take a little of the what did you do!?! here let me fix it load off SE so they can concentrate on core operations

Our first afternoon at Interlochen has always been tech/setup/adjustments. Pretty thorough too. Unfortunately Greg always ran that one. I've always been semi-comfortable with it but not qualified to take over so we kind of skipped it last summer. Probably in the future I'll check with my potential teachers to see who is comfortable with it.

just thinking out loud here (I haven't done any process control stuff for abt a..eww quarter century now) but maybe single-line FIFO (aka queue) isn't the optimal strategy
perhaps allocating X time for wood, Y time for railboard, Z timefor repairs per cycle (not sure where NS fits in there, but they are poopie heads anyway!! ) and adjusting delivery estimates accordingly would be helpful.

That way expectations are clear, there is a service pathway, but jobs aren't continually being inserted ahead of order



couple of 'soft' thoughts on that

Not sure what the assembly time for railboard is...but I suspect it's significantly lower and I think the blanks are batch processed.
So we may be talking significantly higher throughput for those orders
getting more instruments into more hands

At a 24 month buy in as-is, maybe...MAYBE (unsure)...potential customers would be less sensitive to a push out on longer-production-time units (24 vs 26 or what have you)

There are certainly some social dynamics around some aspects (esp within a community as this).
Baggetthouse, for example, does have another functioning instrument, so perhaps he would be less sensitive to his time in the repair queue.

I, for example, struggle with Chapman stick for personal enrichment (and t o keep the ole noggin neuroplastic. Also find it helps with crippling depression)and have no performance aspirations. I would cede time in the queue for performing musicians and/or those without an instrument.

I suspect it would be too administratively and socially complex to add that as an order option - So I'd think you;'d want to look at the aggregate and do a static allocation).

Aside : Ah, it reminds me of CS where I had this prof who was into replacing stack and queues with sorted lists for control flow. Neat idea and it made for a default best-first instead of depth- or breadth-first scheme, but hilarity could ensue


but I digress, just a thought on something that might, merely MIGHT (esp not having any numbers) improve throughput.

hey!
hope all my word-vomit doesn't come off as dismissive of any perspectives or pessimistic about the future or anything. I mean it to be quite the opposite.

I guess, as I look out the window and watch the season change (frighteningly early - and I'm in a rebuilding phase myself. There was much loss ) I think about the changes in season for Chapman Stick and the stick community. I find the concerns valid and hope to approach it less as what's going to happen? and more how can I help?

oh that's great! I didn't realize
his video on setting up DBR I think it on everyone's playlist
I need to personally access the community more [though since Covid...I can't seem to remember what "personally" is] - maybe this year I can put the foot down
Woman! stop signing me up for stuff, I'm not 9 and just because you are 3 times smarter than me doesn't mean I shouldn't have a say in my schedule

I've had the main components to build a Chapman Stick for my own personal use for many years. The wood that I will be using is PurpleHeart. I've purchased a small CNC wood carving machine that might be up to the task. (If I put the wood in diagonally) I've calculated the hypotenuse to be 45" and my vintage stick is 42". So, it might work. If not, I have other plans for this machine.

The OneFinity CNC X-35 Woodworker machine.
https://www.onefinitycnc.com/product-pa ... -onefinity

I bought their controller and their touchscreen display options.
The machine can work on its own, without a computer connected.

This machine has X 32" - Y 32" - Z 5" capability
It's good enough to handle the smaller 3D carving jobs.
I'm especially interested in doing inlays of different wood types.