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The TILI

Created by Marc Liss

A minimalist fixed-blade pocket knife made to be used.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

The final update!
about 2 years ago – Mon, Mar 07, 2022 at 09:04:58 AM

Hi everyone, 


Well its been over a month since the last update and to be honest, I had sort of forgotten about this one...because everything has shipped! I guess my brain just kinda of shutdown after that last parcel left my hands. Sorry for the delay. 


By now, most of you should have received your reward. I have heard from many of you and I'm happy to report the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Its great to know so many of you are enjoying the TILI and putting it to good use. 


For those of you who haven't received your TILI there are a couple of likely reasons:


1) As you know Global shipping has been turned on its head these last couple of years. Shipping within North America (I am in Canada) has been okay but shipping abroad has been very slow at times. If you are located fairly far from Canada, or in a remote location then it is possible your TILI has been delayed somewhere along the supply chain. I will ask for patience in this case as there is no one that I can really call to change this. Opening a claim with Canada Post doesn't help much as they can take weeks just to reach the shipping carrier in another country. Usually just waiting works best but that also obviously isnt a solution after a certain amount of time has past so please continue reading below. 


2) Your TILI was lost in the mail. This happens very rarely but it is a possibility. Unfortunately, it is hard to know when this has happened as the tracking will not say "lost". It will just look like the item is stuck in one place or another. Usually stuck items get unstuck on their own and waiting is the only way for that to happen. But there is a line that is crossed where waiting no longer makes sense and we have to assume the item is lost an open a claim. 


So, heres what I'll ask: if you haven't received your TILI yet let me know. I'd like to start a record of who is missing theirs and how long they have been waiting. Then I can advise each case based on location, tracking, etc etc. As of right now I dont even know if anyone is missing theirs so if you are please let me know. 


Finally..

I'd like to thank you all again for your amazing support. We are a small operation, with just myself and my wife Kayla managing things.  All profits from this campaign went directly to us, literally helping put food on the table. So thank you. Thank you so much. 


Kickstarter has become a regular part of our annual income and we will be back again quite soon (June?) with another campaign dedicated to a new culinary knife of ours. We are very excited about this next campaign and are really looking forward to sharing it with you. 


To stay up-to-date with this please head to originhandcrafted.com to sign up for our newsletter and follow along on Instagram at @origin_handcrafted

Our family :)

 All the best from: 

Marc, Kayla, Ada and Arthur

I have good news and….good news!
about 2 years ago – Sat, Jan 29, 2022 at 05:43:12 AM

Hi folks!

I just wanted to touch base with a quick update:

All knives are complete as of today!

I held off on an earlier update as I wanted to wait until I could officially report this. All knives are officially done! Woo!

I spent my time since the last update completing all of the standard Skelen orders, of which there were many. Once those were done I moved on to the final build, which was the stainless steel Oakens, and yesterday I put the finishing touches on the final six! And that means all that is left is to ship them.

Some of the recently completed stainless Oakens.
On the sharpening block this week.

Shipping is nearly done

By now, many of you will have received a notification that your reward has shipped. I will be shipping another 17 TILIs out in a few hours and once those are done I will be at 85% fulfilment. I expect to be at 99% fulfilment in another 1-2 weeks.

I say 99% because when handling a project this large there are inevitably some loose ends to tidy up once the bulk of everything has shipped. I did a thorough count and recount of everything at the beginning of production but there are a lot of moving parts to this so it may turn out that I missed a couple knives in the count, or a sheath or two. But I don’t anticipate any major hiccups and anything that was missed will be wrapped up and sent in a week or two. I have knife blanks standing by and my sheath maker already has pieces cut and ready for stitching if anything is needed last minute.

So yes, the end is in sight. I will send a final update when everything is all wrapped up, and please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions about your order.


Thank you for your ongoing patience and support!

- Marc

More Rewards complete, lots of shipping done, and the state of global shipping.
over 2 years ago – Mon, Dec 20, 2021 at 12:37:10 PM

Hello all! Can't believe its already time for another update. I've been busy :)


What I’ve done since last time

Hempens complete! - This was the bulk of the work since last update. The Hempen was the most popular reward by far and lots were needed. But I also have found a great rhythm by this point in the process and the Hempens moved along very smoothly. Here’s some photos of the process for the amber coloured Hempen.

Raw blades all hardened, polished and ready for a wrap.
The wrapping process. I get to do this while sitting on the couch so its kinda nice.
All wrapped and ready for an epoxy soak.
Soaked in epoxy and set aside for 24 hours to cure. Once they are hardened I break the extra little bit of string off.

Stainless Hempen - The stainless Hempens were also all wrapped :)

Skelen - These are what I am in the midst of currently. Several have shipped, several more are fully done, and there remains about 20 that are well on their way but still need heat treatment and finishing.

Brass Beads - I have also been working on beads when I am in between jobs and have finished about half of them. Here’s a photo of the rest batch, many of which gave already shipped.

Hammered and shiny. The brass will naturally age and develop a nice dark patina.

What more is there to do?

Stainless Oaken - These will be the last items completed, likely finished up toward the end of January. The blades are hardened and just need finishing, then the handles need to be attached, shaped and oiled.

Standard Skelen - I expect to be done these by the end of December but I will also be taking some time off to be with my family full time during the holidays so it may be early next month that they are done.

Beads - The brass beads are 50% done but the TruStone beads still need to be started. There aren’t a ton to do though and I should have every kind of bead done by the end of next month. I am working on these a little bit at a time so that I can ship out a few orders that call for them each week.

And what about sheaths?

I am happy to report that Matt over at WolfBoy Leatherworks has fully hit his stride on sheaths and has been delivering a hefty batch of beautifully crafted leather sheaths every couple of weeks. I now have a consistent supply of all varieties of sheaths. This allows me to ship a good chunk of knives each week.

Shipping

Shipping is well underway and by now many of you will have received a shipping notification with tracking info through “Backerkit”. I have found that I am able to ship about 16 knives each week and have officially shipped 38% of orders to date. Before I ship each knife it needs to be sharpened, sheathed, accessorised (if there were add-ons) and then finally packaged, labelled and shipped. It is not a small job but it is very satisfying to send each one out and even better when I get a confirmation of delivery :)

A note on shipping

Many of you may have noticed that the world of shipping has changed since the pandemic began. I have been shipping handmade items for a decade now and have never experienced anything like the level of delays and straight up mistakes being made at scale now. It seems that no shipping provider is immune to this and Canada Post is no exception. Canada Post is our federal shipping provider and they transfer to whoever your local public carrier is in your country. There have been notable delays even domestically in Canada and international orders have been even less reliable…

BUT the vast majority of packages are arriving eventually. It is still a relatively rare item that simply does not arrive at all, and even those eventually make their way back to me. A total loss of an item is almost unheard of. Soooo….I am asking for patience on this front. It may mean waiting several weeks for delivery, a process which can be extremely frustrating as you watch the tracking info not update. I myself am currently waiting for a kickstarter reward that has been rerouted several times since it shipped 4 weeks ago. It is frustrating but it is slowly making its way to me and your knives will slowly make their way to you. But obviously don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or problems with your shipment. I will do my best to advise you with everything I know.

EU and UK Shipments

On July 1st (after I set up the campaign and my shipping policies) the UK made several changes to their shipping policies. The EU seems to have followed suit. Essentially what the changes break down to are a tightening up of allowances for imports. They require a level of detail on package descriptions and tariff codes that I have never had to deal with before. And on top of that there is very little guidance to go off of.

To be totally honest I have had a fair but of trouble shipping to the UK since July and the EU has been challenging as well. A lot of packages have been substantially delayed and many have been sent back to me, and when they are sent back it doesn’t say why. They are simply returned with no explanation. This is an issue to be sure and one that I am working to resolve. I have been extremely diligent with labelling and coding every TILI that has shipped overseas in the last few weeks, but it is still too early to know if my diligence will have paid off.

On paper there is no reason I can’t ship knives overseas. I am labelling everything accurately and thoroughly. But there simply seems to be a general disdain for allowing imports of any kind right now. It is frustrating, but my hope is that things will ease eventually and things will settle into a new normal. For now though I am asking that all UK and EU backers stay patient, but also keep me posted on the progress of your reward. We will have to operate on a case by case basis here. I don’t want to have to do any refunds obviously but I also can’t afford to ship a reward more than once. So yes, please stay in touch if you are in the EU or UK. I will do my best to follow along with your orders as well, but there are a couple dozen to keep track of and I can’t check each one everyday. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns about this.

Thanks you for your continued patience and support. Please reach out if you have any questions about your order.

All the best,

Marc

Major progress and some shipping news!
over 2 years ago – Tue, Nov 16, 2021 at 10:42:49 PM

Hi everyone!

Another month has passed and its time for another update. I put together a simple spreadsheet to give you an idea of where things stand. Keep in mind these percentages are a ballpark of both quantity needed and amount of work done on the knives so far.  And the percentages dont factor in the sheaths. I'll discuss those separately below. 

I have been hard at work and have some major progress to report, as well as a minor delay


1) The stainless steel TILIs are back from heat treatment in Alberta

As mentioned in my last update, I wanted to get the stainless blades shaped, and bevelled first thing as I would be sending them out of province for hardening. Well I did that and they were hardened and back in my hands three weeks later. They received the full spa treatment, with heat cycling, plate quenching and even a cryogenic bath in liquid nitrogen.

Now that I have them back the final polishing steps are fairly straightforward and quick. I have finished 20 so far and will be moving on the the remaining 40 or so in the next couple weeks. The only ones that will take a little longer are the stainless Oakens as they need to have their Woden handles, attached and shaped.

one of the stainless Ultralights all finished up

2) The Standard Oakens are done!

proud of these :)

This was an enormous undertaking and I so I knew I had to set to it as soon as the stainless TILIs were on the door. It looks several weeks of work to bevel, harden, finish grind, cut the whiskey barrel for the handles, attach the handles with brass bolts and epoxy, and then cut and shape the handles, finally finishing them by hand with sandpaper and then oiling them. Whew! But its done and they are ready to go BUT…

I expected to be picking up a batch of their fitted pouch sheaths this past weekend, but didn’t get nearly as many as I wanted. There was a slight miscommunication with my leather guy and I didn’t make as clear as I should have that the pouch sheaths were a priority for me. So he delivered a few of them, but mostly focused on the standard sheaths for the other knife models. The pouch sheaths are a brand new style for him so any his processes needed refining a bit as he wasn’t happy delivering a mediocre product. The few he did deliver look and perform amazingly (see photo below), and now he is set to hit the rest at full stride. But yes a bit of an unexpected delay there. Not the end of the world though as he did deliver other sheaths styles, so I can begin shipping a variety of other blades as they become complete. Which leads me to shipping…

Top notch sheath work by my good friend Matt at WolfBoy Leatherworks.

3) Shipping

In the campaign and in the last update I said I would hopefully be able to begin shipping in November and I am looks like I can stick to my word on that one. The first TILIs will be shipping out later this week or early next! The initial phase of shipments will see a smattering of different rewards shipping out, as I only have certain things on hand and ready to go. But as the Oaken sheaths begin getting delivered in the coming weeks I will be focusing there for the most part.

We are running a wedding ring making business full time here as well and every week I make and ship a dozen or so rings as well. There are only so many hours in a day but my plan is to ship 6 - 10 TILIs every week starting this week. This rate will slowly pick up through December so that I expect to be finished shipping everything in January or early February.


4) Add-ons and extras

There are s viral types of add ons that need to be made. I am working through these one type at a time and so far I have completely finished the strops and the apparel order has been submitted and is waiting to be picked up. Next I’ll be moving on to the various bead types :)


And one more photo just because...

8 Oakens ready for sharpening. I do my sharpening in the evening and can usually manage about 8 a night.

Thanks for your continued patience! I am so excited to start sending these beauties out to you :)


All the best, 


Marc

Production in full swing!
over 2 years ago – Wed, Oct 13, 2021 at 07:16:43 PM

Hello everyone, time for an update!

Its been a busy month here at Origin Goods and I've made quite a bit of progress on the TILIs. Since we last spoke I have:

Almost finished all of the stainless steel TILIs 

I wanted to get these done first as I needed to send them off for heat treatment in Alberta. So I took them 80% of the way to the finish line and then boxed them up and shipped them out a few weeks ago. I just spoke with the folks at heatreat.ca this morning and the knives are going to be finished and shipped back to me later this week. At that point I'll do the final grinding and polishing, attach any handles that need attaching, and then sharpen them up. But I haven't been idle while they've been away either. 

several stainless TILIs working their way through production

 The Oaken TILIs are chugging along too!
 The last time we spoke I wasnt yet sure where I was going to begin for general production of the carbon steel blades. There are approximately 150 blades that need making so I want to use my time efficiently  so I can get everyone their knives as soon as possible. After some consideration I decided to dive into the most labour intensive model first. The Oaken model has a whiskey barrel oak handle and as such, requires significantly more work to complete. There are 50+ of these that need making and ultimately I decided that the best way to move forward would be to clear the most labour intensive stuff of my plate first. So for several weeks now I have been working on the carbon steel Oaken TILIs. As of this moment I am about 70% finished the entire batch of them. I have attached the handles to about half of them, and will be attaching the rest this week. Once all of the handles are mounted I will begin the process of shaping and sanding them all at the same time. I hope to have the handles all done by the end of October. And while I am working on them my good friend and collaborator Matthew at Wolfboy Leatherworks has been making the pouch sheaths for them. So everything is moving along very nicely with the Oakens! 

6 Oakens waiting to be glued up
Oaken handles mounted and ready for shaping


Add ons
 There is more to make than just knives and so I am simultaneously making the little extra things that you ordered :) Right now I am  working on the leather honing. I have all of the wood and leather cut for them and every day I glue up another four of them. In short order I will have all of them done at which point I'll move on to the beads. I have also ordered all of the shirts, hoodies and beanies and they are in the works as well! Whew!
What remains to do
 There is still a lot to do. The carbon steel Hempen, Skelen, and Ultralight models all still need to be started. They have been cut and are waiting patiently for me to begin work. After the Oakens are done I will be moving on to these models. As mentioned, my mind is focused on efficiency at this point. The more efficient I am the faster I can get everyone their knives. I could do every knife in the order that they were purchased, but that would be a very inefficient process as I'd be making different models all at the same time. There would have been mistakes and my "assembly line" system would not have worked. So in the end that method would have been a lot slower for all parties. So I am working in larges batches, one model at a time. Doing so saves little pieces of time throughout the process and all of these little time savings add up.

So what about shipping?
 Shipping will begin with some of the Oaken models in November. I will be shipping as many as I can as early as I can. I considered waiting to ship until every single knife was finished, but we simply do not have room in our little house to safely keep 200+ knives. So once the Oakens are done I'll be shipping a few out every week. As I am doing so I will be starting the other knife models and as they become ready they will be added to the shipping process. I suspect this process will run through December and into the new year.

follow along on Instagram
 These updates are few and far between, but I am regularly posting little photos of the process on our instagram account. Follow along at @origin_handcrafted


Thanks for your patience and support everyone! Feel free to reach out with any questions. 

All the best, 

Marc