Also as a service to our customers, we will be posting on this page the current months orders we are working on. As an example, if you scroll down below and read that we are currently working on April of 07 orders, that means we are solidly into that months orders as of the date of the update posted at the bottom of this page. But just because we may be working full bore on one particular month doesn't mean that there may not be a few orders lingering from the month previous, or orders started from the month following  That is why there is generally a 6 week window in our estimate.

Also keep in mind that just because it is posted that we are working on the month that you placed your order, doesn't mean that you should call and check on status. We understand the anticipation, especially when the time is getting close to your order being shipped. But every time one of the guys has to stop working on customer orders to pick up the phone, means that the work being done on someone's order is being interrupted. Multiply those inquiries by 5, 10, 20 times a day and more..... well.....you get the picture. 

Anyway on to the important stuff....

If you were to place your order today, the delivery time being quoted on new orders, is  22 to 30 weeks!

Update 7/29/2010. 

As of the above date, we are solidly into January 2010 orders and expect to have them all completed in the next few weeks. 

Please note: As happens more often than not, our monthly quotas have been getting filled in the first couple days following the order queue being open to new orders. And as a result, all orders for any given month that we happen to be working on, are all coming due at the same time! 

Obviously it would be impossible for us to fill and complete what would normally be a entire months worth of production in just a couple of days. In a month where orders are flowing in at a rate of 150+ a day, the queue will fill up rather quickly, usually in just a couple days. Orders that are taken just a few hours apart may be weeks apart in actual production. 

As a result of everything coming due at the same time, we have been forced to lengthen our max delivery time estimate by approximately 4 weeks (from 26 to 30) to compensate. 

This probably sounds confusing and it is no doubt frustrating to those who have had to wait longer than expected. If you have any questions on any of this, please feel free to call and ask. 

We appreciate your continued patience!

....Thank you! 

Please note:

Due to the fact that the first few months of the new year are always our busiest and what happens during those first few months can have a major impact on our backlog for the remainder of the year. And since for the last two years, unlike in years past, we have been unable to process orders fast enough to reduce our backlog to what it was previous to those first few busy months. We have decided that the best way to handle the high volume of orders during that time period is to set up a temporary, monthly quota system. A quota for any given month will be at the point where any orders taken beyond that point will only serve to increase our backlog further than the 26 weeks we are quoting now. At the point in the month where the quota is reached, we will cut off taking any new orders for the remainder of that month and resume taking orders again the first of the following month. 

Hopefully by controlling the order volume in the above described manner we will be in a better position later in the year to reduce our backlog even further. By doing nothing, our backlog has the real potential to extend to a year or more. This is the better alternative, I think.

What we are doing in the interim is to slowly increase our staff to accommodate the present workload. The problem is that it takes a very long time to train a person to do the kind of quality work we are known for and we just cannot run the shop efficiently with more than one apprentice in-training at a time. At the beginning of last year we added our latest employee and even still our backlog increased over what it was the year before. Sometimes hiring more people just isn't enough.

We understand that this is not going to sit well with some people. Especially with those who call to place an order after the monthly cutoff point has been reached. All I can say is that we hope this is only a temporary situation at worst and it's permanence is not inevitable by any means. We will be evaluating the volume of orders taken on a daily basis throughout the months and any cutoff date, in the event that there is one, will be posted on the front page of this site, right next to the link you clicked to bring you here. 

Thank you!