I will probably be able to help with extra Leia's but the Chewies are most likely all spoken for, sorry.
-
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Limited Run Leia and Chewie ANH brass handcuffs
- Thread starter eethan
- Start date
Jawakilla
New Member
No worries I figured as much, I would pass on the Leia’s tho. Fantastic and beautiful work yet again, I love the projects you choose to tackle.
Hi there,
sorry for the lack of communication lately, I have actually some good progress to share
I machined the clasps for both sizes,
I started by cutting several lengths to machine several clasps at once and gain some time compared to machining each part one by one:
then machined them to size:
then i cut them to the final size and machined both sides flat and to the final thicnkess:
lots of small golden parts!
second big step, I beveled all the inside of the rings with the wood router, the wood bit survived the 2x 86 sides to machine, all good
sorry, lots of blurry pics lately, maybe my phone needs to be cleaned or something!
sorry for the lack of communication lately, I have actually some good progress to share
I machined the clasps for both sizes,
I started by cutting several lengths to machine several clasps at once and gain some time compared to machining each part one by one:
then machined them to size:
then i cut them to the final size and machined both sides flat and to the final thicnkess:
lots of small golden parts!
second big step, I beveled all the inside of the rings with the wood router, the wood bit survived the 2x 86 sides to machine, all good
sorry, lots of blurry pics lately, maybe my phone needs to be cleaned or something!
This is really cool Matthieu!
copecameron
New Member
Is there any chance to get a pair?
Hi, Leia, yes
Chewie has a relatively long waitlist. Cheers
Hey guys
here is a little bit of update!
I have milled the ends of the Chewie cuts, clean and to the proper height. Basically, I put the C shape at the bottom of the vice, alight the top ends, then I go to a certain depth on the clasp side, and 6.2mm deeper on the hinges side, and I mark the hinge side with a small marker dot for later on
alright, this took a while to do on all 84 of those!
Now, as the Chewies are very demanded, I really want to release both Leia's and Chewie's together and give a chance to everyone to get a Leia instead or something, so I want to move forward on the Leias too so they don't get behind.
So, I started bending the parts to size now
after a few, I realized it worked a bit better with adding a sheet of aluminium on each side, the alu won's mark the brass and it will also slide along the vice steel at the begining of the bend, preventing even more marks to be done on the brass
just getting started, it's a very physical process with my bad back.
I have been looking at buying a new more powerful vice for that purpose since the begining of the project, but it turns out hydraulic vices are not that easy to find here, a lot of them are crap and also, they cost at the very least 1000€ and things are bit a bit tough for me since being sick in october until now, more below on this
anyways, i'll get those done eventually!
Now, let's discuss life a bit! ;-)
This is getting a bit personal so no one has to read this if they don't want to of course ;-) A lot of people here I consider friends, I want to say some of you guys are invested in me since a few years that I have been doing this, and maybe you want to hear a bit on how it's going for me in our current crazy word!
So, you've been warned, this is getting personal ;-)
and, also, this is going to be a long read as I have a lot to explain, sorry.
Being sick and slowly getting better:
Like a lot of you probably know, I have been sick since october, I had covid for the first time in October last year, first time in 6 years I have not worked for a week and just sit in my couch waiting for it to pass, and during the next month, I started experiencing a lot of crazy symptoms, heart condition and all. It turns out Covid completely disrupted my thyroid, it took a while to find the issue, then the first reaction was just to treat the heart symptoms and wait for it to pass. But, in january, it got worse. I finally managed to see a specialist end of february and now I have had an actual treatment for a month, doing blood tests every week and it has been getting better all along the past month, pfiou! that was crazy!
Because of that condition, those that followed my work, I mean, the little work there was to follow. Basically doing the proto for that run, and doing a small miserable run of 8 pistol kits from the expanse that was supposed to take a month and took 5! well, lets be brutally honest, I have earned a total of 3054€ including fees, taxes and shipping costs since the begining of the year! that's not a whole lot for more than 3 months of work.
So, getting back to that new vice to buy, it would be a risky decision for me right now.
What my governement is doing to my company status and how it impacts my business:
More so, because, on top of being sick, it looks like all of our governments, how to say this, decided to all go crazy at the same time! I'm not going polical, just explaining the repercusions to our situation here, no worries.
Starting with my own government, with something that concerns me very directly, they quietly voted a new state budget and decided to change the regulations for my company status. "Micro entrepreneur". I'm not really a company per se, I'm an individual company, (it's just me, I can't have an employee), I have a simplified administrative management, and I don't collect VAT from my customers on my invoices, NEVER.
This means that I'm just like a normal person buying stuff and paying VAT on it, even for my business, then I make something, i sell it and there is no VAT on it.
This is the reason I'm very aware and protective about my customers in the UK, Canada and other countries that pay VAT on import, because my work is not subject to VAT in France, so it's not removed from my price for international orders, but those countries are not aware of this when they receive my stuff and they will eventually bill you, so I'll always work with those people to help them avoid it if possible.
Being in Europe and not subject to VAT on my sales is something that is important to me, I am proud to be an accessible maker for European people for once, they don't have to pay a lot of shipping, they don't have to pay customs like when ordering in the US for instance, and they don't get charged with French VAT either. My american and other far away customers have to wait a bit more with shipping times, but basically everyone in the world get my stuff for basically the same price and I work hard to be affordable and easy to communicate with for anyone in the world! I never want that change ever! it's so damn important!
Well, on the first of March, my government changed my status without warning!
My status is intended for someone like me who works alone, handles a small business and doesn't make that much money all in all. Before, you didn't have to handle VAT if you stayed under 85000€ of annual turnover. They lowered that threshold to 25000€. From 85K to 25K!!! not 10-20%, no, 70% all at once, why not! can you imagine?
let me get technical for a minute and explain how no one in France can live with that status anymore with a 25K turnover.
With that status and paypal for payments, you have approximatively 19.25% of fees.Like I explained this is company version for small businesses and i'm also paying VAT on things I buy like a regular individual. A company doesn't.
so, after the fees are removed on the hypothetical max of 25K, there are 20187€ left, to this I remove also approximatively 10% from the base 25K that is shipping costs that are also counted in that annual turnover, so that is 17687. In average, since I started doing this, I have had 14.3% of material cost on my projects. So, we are left with 14187€ to live in a year. That is 1182.25€ per month.
In France, the minimal wage now apparently is 1426€ per month. the poverty threshold is 1216€ per month. So, with 1182.25€ per month I would be under the poverty threshold by working every day of the year like I have been doing for the past 5 years. Thank you mister president, much appreciated.
For those wondering, if you don't use that status anymore, with a small business like mine, you basically can't either. I have made all my business around this status, bought ALL my material and tools with VAT on it, so VAT was paid on all my investment to start my company, it is lost now, even if I change my status. The other company statuses are for much bigger companies with employees and much larger incomes, and the taxes are more like around 50% than what they are now, so I wouldn't be able to live either, I would either have to up my prices 150% and you guys would not buy from me anymore, or live with half of what I'm making right now, and we are back to square one.
Let me be clear, that change was voted and executed on the first of March.
This impacts directly around 300000 workers in France that work full time like me with this status. This was voted to get 200000€ for the state. Something they could get in a minute from Amazon on any other big company in France that doesn't pay their taxes in France, but they chose to do this instead. A lot of specialists and people reacted that this was uterly stupid as from those 300k workers, a lot would just go under and stop earning money, another lot would just not declare their earnings anymore to stay under the 25K threshold (think all the hand to hand workers, not people like me that get their payments online) and in the end, the government would get less money than before and in general, France would be just a little bit poorer all in all. Obviously, i'm simplying a few things, but this is just not possible, you just can't change something that important that drastically, and you just can't hope that it works either, it's just silly.
Of course, at this point, all the workers associations and a lot of workers themselves pushed back really hard, did demonstrations, signed a petition to remove the goverment from office a second time in a year, but it didn't work, but another petition to remove that new law completely was heard, because it had to, it was addressed to the senate directly and it had more than 200k signatures, and the change was suspended until June.
It was only suspended, in June they will tell us what they'll do, and hopefully we are not back for another round of the same thing, we just can't live like this like I explained above.
I guess we'll see in June, in the meantime, I'm just living with that sword above my head and I'm just trying to work to get back at the delay I have been accumulating since October anyways!
Regarding the tariffs:
Of course, at the same time as all this, there are the damn Tariffs we are hearing about everywhere. My customer base is 90% american, so this is worrying me a lot obviously.
But I want to reasure everyone for now, so far I don't think this changes anything for us, I mean my customers with me. Of course it changes a lot with China and it changes a lot of things in general, it's crazy!
But again, with me, I'm making all of my stuff by myself here, and I'm shipping them one by directly to you directly, so, as far as I understand, nothing has changed compared to before, there is still the 800$ de minimis, and everytime you buy something from me and I ship it to you in the US, as far as I undertand again, and as far as I experienced for years and in the past months and weeks, you don't have to pay anything. Please stay with me dear customers, I really need you!
I sincerely hope Supergreen props will still be around for years to come and I'll be able to continue doing cool stuff for all you guys! I have work really hard to get to this, lost my friends when I got back to France to make it happen, destroyed my back in the process, and eat pastas for 3 years before it started to work last year, to get to this today. So hopefully, things improve from there on!
I think that is about it, all that to say, LIFE, and yeah, it will be difficult to afford that new vice anyways, so I'll have to work my muscles for now ;-)
Iove you guys!
cheers all
here is a little bit of update!
I have milled the ends of the Chewie cuts, clean and to the proper height. Basically, I put the C shape at the bottom of the vice, alight the top ends, then I go to a certain depth on the clasp side, and 6.2mm deeper on the hinges side, and I mark the hinge side with a small marker dot for later on
alright, this took a while to do on all 84 of those!
Now, as the Chewies are very demanded, I really want to release both Leia's and Chewie's together and give a chance to everyone to get a Leia instead or something, so I want to move forward on the Leias too so they don't get behind.
So, I started bending the parts to size now
after a few, I realized it worked a bit better with adding a sheet of aluminium on each side, the alu won's mark the brass and it will also slide along the vice steel at the begining of the bend, preventing even more marks to be done on the brass
just getting started, it's a very physical process with my bad back.
I have been looking at buying a new more powerful vice for that purpose since the begining of the project, but it turns out hydraulic vices are not that easy to find here, a lot of them are crap and also, they cost at the very least 1000€ and things are bit a bit tough for me since being sick in october until now, more below on this
anyways, i'll get those done eventually!
Now, let's discuss life a bit! ;-)
This is getting a bit personal so no one has to read this if they don't want to of course ;-) A lot of people here I consider friends, I want to say some of you guys are invested in me since a few years that I have been doing this, and maybe you want to hear a bit on how it's going for me in our current crazy word!
So, you've been warned, this is getting personal ;-)
and, also, this is going to be a long read as I have a lot to explain, sorry.
Being sick and slowly getting better:
Like a lot of you probably know, I have been sick since october, I had covid for the first time in October last year, first time in 6 years I have not worked for a week and just sit in my couch waiting for it to pass, and during the next month, I started experiencing a lot of crazy symptoms, heart condition and all. It turns out Covid completely disrupted my thyroid, it took a while to find the issue, then the first reaction was just to treat the heart symptoms and wait for it to pass. But, in january, it got worse. I finally managed to see a specialist end of february and now I have had an actual treatment for a month, doing blood tests every week and it has been getting better all along the past month, pfiou! that was crazy!
Because of that condition, those that followed my work, I mean, the little work there was to follow. Basically doing the proto for that run, and doing a small miserable run of 8 pistol kits from the expanse that was supposed to take a month and took 5! well, lets be brutally honest, I have earned a total of 3054€ including fees, taxes and shipping costs since the begining of the year! that's not a whole lot for more than 3 months of work.
So, getting back to that new vice to buy, it would be a risky decision for me right now.
What my governement is doing to my company status and how it impacts my business:
More so, because, on top of being sick, it looks like all of our governments, how to say this, decided to all go crazy at the same time! I'm not going polical, just explaining the repercusions to our situation here, no worries.
Starting with my own government, with something that concerns me very directly, they quietly voted a new state budget and decided to change the regulations for my company status. "Micro entrepreneur". I'm not really a company per se, I'm an individual company, (it's just me, I can't have an employee), I have a simplified administrative management, and I don't collect VAT from my customers on my invoices, NEVER.
This means that I'm just like a normal person buying stuff and paying VAT on it, even for my business, then I make something, i sell it and there is no VAT on it.
This is the reason I'm very aware and protective about my customers in the UK, Canada and other countries that pay VAT on import, because my work is not subject to VAT in France, so it's not removed from my price for international orders, but those countries are not aware of this when they receive my stuff and they will eventually bill you, so I'll always work with those people to help them avoid it if possible.
Being in Europe and not subject to VAT on my sales is something that is important to me, I am proud to be an accessible maker for European people for once, they don't have to pay a lot of shipping, they don't have to pay customs like when ordering in the US for instance, and they don't get charged with French VAT either. My american and other far away customers have to wait a bit more with shipping times, but basically everyone in the world get my stuff for basically the same price and I work hard to be affordable and easy to communicate with for anyone in the world! I never want that change ever! it's so damn important!
Well, on the first of March, my government changed my status without warning!
My status is intended for someone like me who works alone, handles a small business and doesn't make that much money all in all. Before, you didn't have to handle VAT if you stayed under 85000€ of annual turnover. They lowered that threshold to 25000€. From 85K to 25K!!! not 10-20%, no, 70% all at once, why not! can you imagine?
let me get technical for a minute and explain how no one in France can live with that status anymore with a 25K turnover.
With that status and paypal for payments, you have approximatively 19.25% of fees.Like I explained this is company version for small businesses and i'm also paying VAT on things I buy like a regular individual. A company doesn't.
so, after the fees are removed on the hypothetical max of 25K, there are 20187€ left, to this I remove also approximatively 10% from the base 25K that is shipping costs that are also counted in that annual turnover, so that is 17687. In average, since I started doing this, I have had 14.3% of material cost on my projects. So, we are left with 14187€ to live in a year. That is 1182.25€ per month.
In France, the minimal wage now apparently is 1426€ per month. the poverty threshold is 1216€ per month. So, with 1182.25€ per month I would be under the poverty threshold by working every day of the year like I have been doing for the past 5 years. Thank you mister president, much appreciated.
For those wondering, if you don't use that status anymore, with a small business like mine, you basically can't either. I have made all my business around this status, bought ALL my material and tools with VAT on it, so VAT was paid on all my investment to start my company, it is lost now, even if I change my status. The other company statuses are for much bigger companies with employees and much larger incomes, and the taxes are more like around 50% than what they are now, so I wouldn't be able to live either, I would either have to up my prices 150% and you guys would not buy from me anymore, or live with half of what I'm making right now, and we are back to square one.
Let me be clear, that change was voted and executed on the first of March.
This impacts directly around 300000 workers in France that work full time like me with this status. This was voted to get 200000€ for the state. Something they could get in a minute from Amazon on any other big company in France that doesn't pay their taxes in France, but they chose to do this instead. A lot of specialists and people reacted that this was uterly stupid as from those 300k workers, a lot would just go under and stop earning money, another lot would just not declare their earnings anymore to stay under the 25K threshold (think all the hand to hand workers, not people like me that get their payments online) and in the end, the government would get less money than before and in general, France would be just a little bit poorer all in all. Obviously, i'm simplying a few things, but this is just not possible, you just can't change something that important that drastically, and you just can't hope that it works either, it's just silly.
Of course, at this point, all the workers associations and a lot of workers themselves pushed back really hard, did demonstrations, signed a petition to remove the goverment from office a second time in a year, but it didn't work, but another petition to remove that new law completely was heard, because it had to, it was addressed to the senate directly and it had more than 200k signatures, and the change was suspended until June.
It was only suspended, in June they will tell us what they'll do, and hopefully we are not back for another round of the same thing, we just can't live like this like I explained above.
I guess we'll see in June, in the meantime, I'm just living with that sword above my head and I'm just trying to work to get back at the delay I have been accumulating since October anyways!
Regarding the tariffs:
Of course, at the same time as all this, there are the damn Tariffs we are hearing about everywhere. My customer base is 90% american, so this is worrying me a lot obviously.
But I want to reasure everyone for now, so far I don't think this changes anything for us, I mean my customers with me. Of course it changes a lot with China and it changes a lot of things in general, it's crazy!
But again, with me, I'm making all of my stuff by myself here, and I'm shipping them one by directly to you directly, so, as far as I understand, nothing has changed compared to before, there is still the 800$ de minimis, and everytime you buy something from me and I ship it to you in the US, as far as I undertand again, and as far as I experienced for years and in the past months and weeks, you don't have to pay anything. Please stay with me dear customers, I really need you!
I sincerely hope Supergreen props will still be around for years to come and I'll be able to continue doing cool stuff for all you guys! I have work really hard to get to this, lost my friends when I got back to France to make it happen, destroyed my back in the process, and eat pastas for 3 years before it started to work last year, to get to this today. So hopefully, things improve from there on!
I think that is about it, all that to say, LIFE, and yeah, it will be difficult to afford that new vice anyways, so I'll have to work my muscles for now ;-)
Iove you guys!
cheers all
Oh, I forgot one step in life!
No worries, not as dramatic or anything.
I have been combating wasps for a few years in my workshop! in the summer, it's like 20 wasps per hour that sneak into the workshop and that I have to remove with a broom, there's a whole technique anyways, it's been a bit crazy.
I'm just under the roof, there is not insulation, nothing, it's 5°C in the winter and 38°C in the summer, it's very fun!
So, this has been a 3 steps project and each time those damn thing still managed to get in!
Last year I added plaster at the top of the roof because I thought this was the most likely place they were coming in. Then I added silicone around all the tiles inside, those are "everites", i don't know how it's called in English, they are like 2mx1m of a roof plate, so yeah, I started caulking all this and it started to get better, now it's like 5 wasps per hour (it's became an actual unit of measure, I swear)
Well, there were two lines that were not caulked yet and I think I identified a spot where they are coming in, just above the milling machine, always fun when they drop on you while milling. SO I calked the extra lines today that needed to be done and now I really hope this is completely wasps proof! damnit!
damn, please forgive the typo, "where coming", stupid eethan!
No worries, not as dramatic or anything.
I have been combating wasps for a few years in my workshop! in the summer, it's like 20 wasps per hour that sneak into the workshop and that I have to remove with a broom, there's a whole technique
anyways, it's been a bit crazy.I'm just under the roof, there is not insulation, nothing, it's 5°C in the winter and 38°C in the summer, it's very fun!
So, this has been a 3 steps project and each time those damn thing still managed to get in!
Last year I added plaster at the top of the roof because I thought this was the most likely place they were coming in. Then I added silicone around all the tiles inside, those are "everites", i don't know how it's called in English, they are like 2mx1m of a roof plate, so yeah, I started caulking all this and it started to get better, now it's like 5 wasps per hour (it's became an actual unit of measure, I swear)
Well, there were two lines that were not caulked yet and I think I identified a spot where they are coming in, just above the milling machine, always fun when they drop on you while milling. SO I calked the extra lines today that needed to be done and now I really hope this is completely wasps proof! damnit!
damn, please forgive the typo, "where coming", stupid eethan!
I am so sorry You're going through this. Governments everywhere always squeeze the people with the least. I hope it gets better.
Oh man, the Covid and heart related issues. No fun man… that’s some serious stuff
Seems like life dumped a lot on you all at once
When this happens I always remind myself “one step at a time” or just to “day by day” everything will eventually get done
Another saying I always use is “you can’t rush art”
Take care my friend
Seems like life dumped a lot on you all at once
When this happens I always remind myself “one step at a time” or just to “day by day” everything will eventually get done
Another saying I always use is “you can’t rush art”
Take care my friend
Yes, no worries, it was scary at times, but I think I managed to do things one at a time and wait for things to get better eventually. The only thing that was really hurt was my income as if I don't work, I simply don't get money, but that is one of the risks of this kind of status, and that is another reason why you just can't change it the way they did.Oh man, the Covid and heart related issues. No fun man… that’s some serious stuff
Seems like life dumped a lot on you all at once
When this happens I always remind myself “one step at a time” or just to “day by day” everything will eventually get done
Another saying I always use is “you can’t rush art”
Take care my friend
Hopefully things will get better, like you said, day by day, for now I'm working and focusing on getting things done while getting better, and we will see in the meantime and in June what our goverments decide in the end and see what to do at this point. For now, what I really want is get those beautiful handcuffs in your hands guys
thank you for the kind words
copecameron
New Member
Could I possibly be put on that waitlist ?Hi, Leia, yes
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