While it’s actually October now, this update covers what went on in September, as well as a little prognostication about what’s happening in October.

Custom Guitar Progress

For the latest on our new guitar, see this page: OFMG Guitar

Travel and Shipping Delays

This is just a heads up that because of family and travel plans shipping will be delayed by a few days this week (week of Oct 1), as well as the week of Oct 14.

Supply/Production Issues

I know I’m sounding like a broken record here, but we are still having some issues with getting parts in on time, but have made a lot of progress. We now have suppliers that so far have been able to deliver the right parts on time, and so we are switching our ordering to these new suppliers. It will still take a few weeks to get the inventory built back up, so some things will still only be available in limited quantities and may get sold out each week. If an item is sold out one week, check back on Thursdays as that’s when we normally restock things.

We are bringing more production capacity online (more printers etc…) and have made an initial production run and are evaluating the results now. We should be going into full production mode by next week.

Potential Tariff Impacts

Depending on the results of the upcoming election in the U.S., we could potentially have to pay up to 60% tariffs on some of the parts we use for the Strum Fixes, Fret Fixes and the new guitar. We (not China) are already paying a 25% tariff on a lot of parts and had to adjust our pricing a few years ago because of that — we absorbed most of the costs, but we can’t afford a 60% tax without substantially raising prices, and unfortunately for most of our parts there are no alternatives that would allow us to avoid the tariffs. Large corporations are able to play games with subsidiaries and get special treatment to get around many of the tariffs, but we are not so lucky. Whatever happens I hope the tariffs do not become a reality as it would severely impact our business.

Take care everyone,

Scott P