Snarf: The Utility Knife Reinvented for Knife Nuts

Hey everyone, thank you so much for your patience as we round third and head for home on Snarf delivery!

A huge shout-out to my friends Justin and Juan, who have put their own lives on hold to help me finish shipping. I've been working with Juan from 8am to 5pm, then Justin from 5pm to 2 a.m. It's been a couple weeks of super long days, but their help (and company) has made all the difference!

I do want to apologize for causing confusion regarding tracking information. We printed the final 400 labels all at once and organize them manually to save time. But we didn't realize that would send an automated message to everyone telling them their package had actually been shipped! If you have a tracking label that says your package shipped several days ago but you're not seeing any movement chances are the package is here with us still being finalized as part of our assembly process.

As I've mentioned before, I’ve gotten pretty far behind on email, and I’ll try to catch up on that over the weekend and get to any requests I've missed. 

Again, I really appreciate everyone's support and patience. We definitely did not plan on having to navigate this shipping season with Melody experiencing significant health issues, but we've been plugging away as much as we can and we are so thankful for everyone sticking with us through it!

-Michael
(PS, another update to come today or tomorrow with more specifics on shipping completion percentage.)

Hey everyone!

I’m excited to announce that we packed our 800th Snarf shipment tonight! Well, technically this morning, since it’s after 2 AM as I’m wrapping up for the day.

That means we’ve officially crossed the 75% mark for Snarf fulfillment!

We’ve been working as quickly as we can to get these knives out the door, and despite some health challenges and other obstacles along the way, we’re making some really good progress.

I’ve got a couple of friends coming to help tomorrow, so I’m hoping we’ll be able to make another good push toward the finish line!

A Quick Update on Accents

We’re getting close to the portion of our fulfillment queue that includes orders with satin and stonewashed accents.

The good news is that it looks like the timing of the incoming accents should line up pretty closely with when those orders are ready to ship.

However, we’re still working through a few production and delivery details with our OEM. If those cause any additional delays, we may go ahead and ship your Snarf first and send the accents separately when they’re ready.

If we go that route, we’ll cover the additional shipping costs. We don’t want to make anyone wait longer for their knife just because we’re waiting on an accent!

Balancing Snarf and Funkenstein

I also want to thank everyone who has supported our Funkenstein pre-order. I’ve been so focused on getting Snarfs out the door that I haven’t been able to dedicate nearly as much time to Funkenstein as I’d planned.

I’ll need to spend some time on that over the next couple of days, but Snarf fulfillment remains the major priority, and we’re going to keep pushing forward.

I also want to apologize to anyone who has been waiting on an email response. Between fulfillment, the health challenges we’ve dealt with, and everything else happening behind the scenes, I’ve fallen behind on correspondence. I’m working to catch up, and I appreciate your patience.

Most importantly, thank you.

I know this project has taken longer than any of us wanted, and I genuinely appreciate everyone who has stuck with us through the process.

We’re getting closer to the finish line every day, and I’ll continue sharing updates as we make progress.

Thank you all!

Michael and Melody, AKT

Hey everyone! We’ve now hit 60% shipped on Snarf! I've also seen some questions regarding our shipping process/order so I wanted to share that and a quick Funkenstein update. Apologies if this is TMI, I tend to go overboard with details, but transparency is important to me so sometimes its difficult to provide enough info without pushing folks into TL:DR territory! So if you read nothing past this, thanks so much for your patience as we wrap up Snarf and launch Funkenstein!

=SHIPPING ORDER=

Past projects had at most two variants and around 700 orders, so we could ship in backing order, which also determines serial-number priority. With Snarf’s 10 variants, nearly 1,100 orders, and 3,000 knives, we needed a different approach.

The knives arrive without serial numbers labeled on their boxes and aren’t packed in numerical order. That means we have to QC and organize an entire variant to locate its lowest available numbers.

We’re following BackerKit’s recommended grouping by package type, starting with the most common combinations. This makes fulfillment manageable in our small workspace because we don't have to keep all 10 variants accessible at once. Single-knife orders generally went first, progressing through blackwashed, satin, sunburst, G10, etc.. Shipping order has therefore followed package popularity rather than backing order.

We were also QC’ing each variant as we began shipping it, which slowed those early batches. All QC except Mystery Snarf is now complete, so even though the remaining shipments are all unique combinations instead of package groups, we expect the remaining 40% to move faster than the first 60% did.

=SERIAL NUMBERS=

This will probably be our last project with serial numbers engraved on the knives. They add considerable sorting time, and setting knives aside for adjustments can mean backers receive higher numbers than expected.

That said, we’d love to know how important serial numbers are to you. Alternatives could include a first-generation mark on every knife or a numbered clip filler included separately for you to install.

=FUNKENSTEIN PREORDER=

The Funkenstein preorder is moving to Tuesday, October 6. We’re waiting on finalized figures from the manufacturer, and prioritizing Snarf fulfillment has also cut into launch preparation. This is our first time preparing a launch while finishing another project, but we've been blessed to have some family and friends jump in to help us continue shipping in the times I've worked on Funkenstein!

Also some exciting news on the Funkenstein front - we're able to offer four variants for each size within the Funkenstein family, so satin with or without inlays and blackwashed with or without inlays:

Plus we received our inlay samples, and they're pretty swanky:

Thanks for your patience and support as we get the remaining Snarfs out the door!

-Michael

Hey everyone – wanted to drop a quick line to let you know we hit 50% shipped yesterday! My amazing parents are celebrating their 51st wedding anniversary by spending time with Melody and I and the kids and helping us accelerate our Snarf fulfillment.

My parents have been my biggest supporters my entire life, so it’s totally on brand for them to pitch in to bring us closer to wrapping up Snarf!

Now here’s where I need you guys to pitch in! Because we’ve been so focused on Snarf delivery, I’ve not had enough time to adequately promote our next launch, which is happening next week, October 1. So if there’s any folks you think would be interested in Funkenstein, please help us get the word out! I plan to hit the preorder site build out hard starting Monday, but folks can keep an eye on the progress at www.funkenstein.live. 

Also, just a heads up that I am a bit behind in my email and BackerKit messages so just know if you haven’t heard from me yet I’m making my way through those messages as quickly as I can. 

As always, thank y’all so much for being such a huge part of AKT!

-Michael

Hey everyone- just wanted to drop you a line to let you know we have shipped 1/3 of our orders!

Our shipping process has especially accelerated in the past week because our good friend Justin has been helping us. We’ve known Justin since he was a kid in our youth group at church, and since he’s currently in a gap semester between college and seminary, we hired him on to help us out!
Justin has been a knife nut even as a kid, in fact the first time I ever forged steel was on a setup he created as a teen. So it’s really cool to have him helping us out in this capacity. Here’s the two of us making a mess of things:


i’m also excited to let you know that both the Miamiburst and Mystery Snarf arrived yesterday! I’ll let you see how Miamiburst came out since you won’t see the Mystery Snarf until it arrives on your doorstep:

It’s hard to say how much longer shipping will take, but we’re 363 down and we’ve got 724 more to go. We appreciate your patience as we work to get Snarf out to you ASAP!

One thing that we do want to note on the QC side of things for those of you who already received your knife. We’ve realized that while the utility blades in the 10 pack are generally to spec, the blade installed in each Snarf was from the first run where the blades were asymmetrical. So the blade installed in your knife may only fit in one direction (with the Aurora logo positioned toward the tip of the Blade Grabbler). So if you have issues getting the blade to click into place in the opposite direction, try the blades from the 10 pack. On the off chance that those blades don’t work, definitely reach out to us because that will probably be a warranty issue with the knife itself. 

We’ll drop you another line soon, but just wanted to let you know how things are progressing! 

-Michael