Back in September 2024, the pre-production run that we ordered during the campaign arrived. This arrival was much anticipated as we use this run to find out early on if there are any possible issues when scaling up to full production.
On the whole the parts looked great! 90% of it was perfect and exactly what we wanted, with the surface finishes coming out better than expected, bearings being spot on, and the machining was done perfectly.
We did however pick out some parts that were not quite as good as we wanted.
After some intense scrutiny of the collets inside of Multi Drive, and testing 3 new variations in this pre-production batch, we decided to go back to the drawing board. There was a case that, when used as a driver, the bit holder loosened. We weren't too happy about this so we made some tweaks to remove any problems there.
With some clever production planning it didn’t add any extra time to the delivery of the campaign, but it did result in a better product overall and that’s what matters at the end of the day.
We also made some design mods, prototyped them, and had them machined for a second pre-production run breaking all records for turn around on every stage of this. I think we used our favour quota for the year!
Without further adieu... here they are!
A Knurly Grip
We'd been experimenting with a part texture for a while, since it was the number one requested adaptation to the Multi Drive, and in the pre-production run the surface finish on the stainless steel was damn good! So damn good in fact that we were worried that if during routine bomb defusal, unless you could keep your palms completely sweat free, you might fumble that last screw and slightly explode. So, as requested, we decided to add a very light knurl to the touch points for use as a screwdriver and tightening the collet.
Now you can REALLY tighten up the collet and deliver a lot more torque to tiny stubborn screws!
Let's Collet A Day
The other change we made was to the collets. In short the design is very much the same, we've just beefed up the collet itself so that it can’t twist or distort (we are talking minute amounts, the thickness of a human hair here).
Along the same lines we have added a very small grub screw to lock out any chance of rotational force on the collet that could cause it to loosen. It’s a small change but one that just ensures any slight tolerance is removed so each driver performs the exact same way, and performs really damn well.
During pre-production we weren't too happy with the consistency of the finish on our spring steel collets. The fine machining needed on the steel was producing too much variance in the end parts, again we're talking .01 of millimetres, but on the small mechanism it would give us too much variability and we didn’t want to risk sending anything out that wouldn’t work like we want it to.
The end result was a material change to a HTB1 brass.
After getting this made up and putting it through its paces we are happy to say it works even better than the original and is reproducible at scale.
With these final checks and upgrades all in place we sent them to the machine shop to get on with machining everything!
On Point Sharpening
This one has given us a lot more trouble than we were expecting! After testing the pre-production samples we found that the pencil sharpener built in to the metal case wasn't quite right. A slight error in the angle of the blade inside it resulted in a sharpener that made a point remanent of an Inca temple… not ideal really. We went through 9 variations and after a week of tinkering, with what turned out to be quite a complicated process, we modified the design by a few millimetres and got it sharpening pencils like a pro!
The below GIF is fresh out of our machine shop, where we've replicated the perfect pencil sharpener in a production Metal Case. This radiant naked guy is what each Metal Case looks like before we grit blast and anodise them into their final form.
Perfectly Formed
We love a good moulded pulp box here at MetMo as it gives a you a tonne of freedom when designing the product. It allows you to get a precision fit on the product to prevent unwanted wandering in transit, and a good degree of shock absorption for if it’s drop kicked to its final destination (not naming any names of course 😉).
You can also build in some pretty complex ribs to give the whole thing enough strength to withstand impacts, and with it all being made from 100% recycled paper I'm not sure we'll be using anything else for our packaging needs for the foreseeable future!
When designing the insert all you need to do is give generous draft angles (usually 3-5 degrees) with very generous rads (no sharp corners) so that the pulp flows easily and can be easily ejected out of the mould. This also allows the finished insert to stack neatly for transport and eventually storage in our warehouse.
The finished Multi Drive box keeps everything perfectly in its place and if you choose to, this box could act as long term storage too.
Encasing The Abrasives
We’re broke new ground this time round and we not only made custom boxes for our main products, but we designed our own peripheral packaging too!
Getting packaging for everything we make is a real challenge, and one that we’ve been battling with for many years. The Multi Drive project and its many, many, many little bits really pushed us out of our comfort box!
Packaging is usually overlooked in the product world and is often an afterthought or designed by a different team, or sometimes completely outsourced all together. We like to keep things close here at MetMo and like to have control over every stage to help keep the project on track. This has meant in the past we've definitely fallen into the 'afterthought' box one too many times, so over the years we've pushed ourselves to design packaging alongside products and to keep the final user experience top of mind as we work. After all, we could make the best product in the world but if it arrives in a mangled ball of card full of scratches or somehow manages to eject itself into the Indian ocean mid flight, you wouldn't be too impressed.
This is our hardened needle file box and is a bit of a step up from the floppy plastic sheathes you usually get with standard files. We had some clear objectives with this box;
- Present the files in an easy to grab and remove format
- Be reusable if it was to be the main storage for the files
- Keep the files away from each other so they don’t get damaged
- Look awesome and be worthy of the hardened tools it contains
We’re super happy with how these turned out and right now these guys are being assembled and packed up, ready for shipping to MetMo HQ.
