Final improvements
about 9 years ago – Fri, Mar 10, 2017 at 10:48:56 PM

Hello again backers!

Comms

Thank you for your patience. Some messages and comments I don’t answer as I’d rather just wait 1-2 weeks and give you the full story than piecemeal.

There are lots of back and forth discussions with he factory and they often take 1-2 weeks to reply. I am not joking. With me chasing every day. It’s just the nature of the beast. Factories are like ocean liners. They are big and move slowly but are able to carry big things.

Factories are in the business of making the same thing 1000’s of times. It takes months to set up a consistent process to do so. During the process set up there is a lot of trial and error, testing, finding problems, having to go back to a step in the process, fix it, etc.

When testing - you have to make 20-100 parts, test them all for consistency.

Factories work with metal - lathes, mills. Waterjet presses, etc. Large machines which are time consuming to set up, work with, adjust.

All this means slow work, slow progress - and as a result - slow coms.

Just bare this in mind next time you’re frustrated when you’ve not had an update for a few weeks.

I am not in the business of tricking people nor do I quit after having come this far nor do I ever accept problems and failure as final. So if you’ve not had an update - please don’t send angry “where’s my stuff!!??!” emails or comments.

Just wait for the update.

I am a perfectionist (in a good way) and am not going to go and start making 2000 flasks until I know they are good enough to start making. If we do, and a problem comes up - you will all be very unhappy and we won’t have time or money to re-make another 2000 flasks.

Remember also that crowdfunding is not Amazon - you’re not pre-ordering. You’re financially backing a project/startup. You’re then coming along for the ride and there’s no getting off the ship if you don’t like the slightly rough seas.

That said and out of the way..

Problems we found and fixed

1) Upper part of the flask was too thin - as in the vacuum space between the outer and the inner wall - so too much heat was being lost through the top. As in the upper part of the flask was getting hot. And if it is - it is (too) rapidly loosing heat. The time heat was retained was OK an on par with other flasks +/- but we wanted to resolve this apparent issue. So we increased the vacuum space at the top (by making the inside a little smaller - probably loosing 100ml at most). BTW that’s extra manufacturing costs to make a new mould. This took a LOT of discussion, time and negotiation as we also considered changing the cap, the outer part of the flask - which would have cost a lot more and taken a lot longer - but decided to change the inside part only.

2) The cap was leaking a little so we made the silicone gasket a little (0.2mm) thicker to stop the leak. 1 out of 10 flasks still leaks so we may need to make it even thicker.

3) The o-ring on the lid (that stores bottom of the flask and also closes up the mug) was just sitting freely and as a result a) the o-ring would roll about and move down the lid and potentially come off and b) left a bit of a gap between the bottom of the flask and the lid and the mug and the lid. So the lid is now getting a recess where the o-ring will sit to ensure it does not move and also allow better closing of the lid into the bottom of the flask and top of the mug.

Time lines

As things stand now, we’re looking at:

27th of March - complete mould modifications as per above changes. this is well under way now and started on the 25th of Feb

15th of April - a (hopefully) final batch of 10-15 engineering samples of flasks to arrive in UK for testing

25th of April - start production if above samples are approved

1st of June - production finished, shipping starts.

That’s all for now - feel free to ask any (constructive) questions, will do my best to answer quickly.

Thank you again for your support and patience!

Mike Dewhirst

P.s. if you read this far, put a comment in this update with a random word - to let me know you did and to make others think “what the heck?!” I’d like to see how many people read the update in full. I suspect it’s about 10-30 max.

Engineering samples testing
about 9 years ago – Wed, Jan 18, 2017 at 11:09:35 PM

Hello backers!

We have been very busy over the past weeks and have made lots of progress. There have been some issues we’ve discovered through the thorough testing, but we’ve worked out solutions for most of them.

The main set back has been comm time with the factory which is very busy and most issues take 1-2 weeks to discuss and agree.

The net effect is that we still need to get a perfect engineering sample before we can start production and this is likely to only come mid February.

So we are now looking at shipping around mid March, unfortunately.

We’re quite upset about this ourselves and feel like we’ve let you down with the optimistic timescales. We’re very sorry about this but our promise to deliver a great product still remains our core goal.

Here is a summary of our findings and activities.

1. Bottom lid threading and fit

The bottom lid fit was not very good and threading it into the bottom of the flask and into the mug was not very good - spin through, big gaps, no tight seals. This was raised with the factory and they resolved this by making the thread deeper in the lid.

The fix works great and the issues listed above were solved.

A thinner o-ring was also used but this caused a too tight a fit where it was later impossible to remove the lid from the mug!

So we found a happy medium in a thinner ring which gives good fit and keeps the gaps small but does not cause issues unscrewing the lid from the mug and bottom of the flask.

2. Heat retention and vacuum

Some of the engineering samples we were sent did not show very good heat retention and the outside of the flasks got quite hot quickly, showing that vacuum was not good inside. We’ve raised this with the factory who have assured us that this will be addressed during production and that all units will be tested for secure vacuum.

We have invested in the Fair E4 thermal camera (about $1000) for the tests and precise, calibrated liquids thermometer.

We compared heat loss and retention with other flasks on the market and found it very good and better than other flasks. The factory also confirmed that heat retention of Forever Flask is better than all their other products.

We still see some warming of the external upper part of the flask and are looking to reduce the inside part to make the vacuum space greater and eliminate heat dispersion through radiation. This will lose some volume but not much plus see below on huge current volume anyway.

Heat retention of the mug / foot tub has been found amazing and we’re very happy with how it has come out - nothing to change here.

We will be doing more time - heat retention testing and will be publishing statistics over the coming weeks.

Here are some of the thermal test images:

The 2 flasks on the right are from competitors - you can see the extreme heat loss through the caps. The middle one is the flask with failed vacuum. The left ones are the good ones. We have more we're testing now too, showing even better results.

Here are the flasks all with their mug/lids on. Again, note the extreme heat loss in the flask on the right and the 2nd to the right via join of the mug onto the flask.

3. Rigidity/sturdiness

The flasks turned out to be a little too soft and would give a little when enough pressure was applied. We wanted a light flask, so we opted for a thin wall initially but after testing and discussion with the factory decided to make the outer wall a little thicker. The flask has come out weighing 840 grams and we think the extra thickness will add another 20-30 grams at most but will be worth it.

4. Cap gasket

The flask cap gasket was too thin initially causing liquids to leak out from the flask. The gasket was made thicker and the issue has been resolved. Even with very hot content we’ve had no issues removing the cap - it does not get stuck due to heat expansion.

5. Internal capacity

The flask has turned out to hold a whopping 1.2 litres internally! That makes it one of the biggest flask on the market with competitors holding between 750ml and 1 litre, including the reality big flasks and Thermos themselves and only a few going up to 1.2 litres. The mug holds just under 500ml also as planned.

Stay tuned and we'll keep you posted as usual. Please don't worry if we're quiet for a few weeks, these things take time as you can see and we need to get down to do the work uninterrupted hence the pauses in comms.

Thank you as always for your support and trust,

Mike Dewhirst

Merry Christmas!
over 9 years ago – Sat, Dec 24, 2016 at 07:53:44 PM

Hello backers!

Sorry we did not make it in time for you to enjoy Forever Flask for Christmas but here is a letter for those who asked for one to put under the tree if you wanted to give Forever Flask to somebody.

We're making good progress, are busy testing the pre-production engineering samples and listing required modifications.

For examples threads need to be made thicker and bigger for better action and less sticking and mis-threading, the outer "skin" will be made a little thicker for more strength (at extra cost to us) and so on.

We a thermal camera also for the testing to see if there are any issues and if so - where.

Will keep you posted of progress and thanks for your continued support!

Here is the letter: https://drive.google.com/a/foreverflask.com/file/d/0B0pN935g_nkwZTBYa1ExeWk0UDg/view?usp=sharing 

And a picture of the flasks.

Merry Christmas and here's to an amazing 2017!

Good and bad news
over 9 years ago – Fri, Dec 09, 2016 at 06:54:28 PM

Hello again backers (and not only)!

We have good and bad news.

The good news

The good news is that the test set of 10 pre-production, engineering samples are ready and here are the photos.

We will be testing these for heat retention, operation in sub zero temperatures, steel hardness testing, 316 purity and a few other things before proceeding to start production.

As you also know the survey went out to all of you - we hope you filled it out!

We now know how many of each colour to make so are all set.

The bad news

The bad news is that mold making took longer than planned and that we're only looking to start production in about 1-2 weeks time, which will take us into mid February to start shipping. 

This is a pessimistic date and we might be able to move it forward - but we hope it won't any more further out than that.

The reasons for the delays are just that molds for the various parts had to be adjusted and some re-made several times due to the complexity of the product - before there were flasks that as a whole came together right. 

Various features - like all parts being vacuumed for better heat retention, flask mouth being rounded and not sharp, metal on metal threading - and so on - took a while to get right. From the 100 flasks pre-production engineering run that were made, only 10 made it past quality control.

From the final, initially OK'd 10 flasks - lids for 10 were scrapped due to them failing the vacuum test and had to be re-made (another week just for this).

Now that the factory knows how to make all the parts the right way, the molds will be adjusted one final time and when production starts we hope scrap rates will be much lower.

We're as sorry and unhappy about this as you are but it is what it is and we're not blaming the factory - who worked very hard at getting us to where we are! We hope you share our view of this also.

The next update will be in about 3 weeks time to publish our test results and advise of production starting.

All the best,

Mike Dewhirst

Pre-production samples almost ready!
over 9 years ago – Tue, Nov 29, 2016 at 10:37:21 PM

Hello backers!

Apologies for the slight delay but as I keep saying this was/is a very complex product/project and the factory found it very challenging to make all the parts to the exact design and specs we imposed.

The good news is that they're almost there with all of the mould making, production set up, weld testing and other steps are almost complete.

Feast your eyes on the hot off the press latest results!

Next week the pre-production engineering samples will be ready, which we will test aggressively, including heat retention, ease of screwing lids on and off - when hot and cold, gasket/o-ring leakage and everything else we have to do before we starting making 1000+ flasks!

Exciting times.