I will give them an A for customer service, got this tonight (Sunday night).
Wow Adam, this is a shock. To date, you are the first to have this reaction. So far I’ve heard from over 30 cigar smokers who have used both the original and new designs. One of those people was even Phil Kohn (Katman Cigar Reviews), and he loves the new design. A few of them have said that they really can’t tell the difference in effectiveness and ease of use, but the vast majority have said they like the new design better. The comments are mostly that they like the feel of the hexagon shaped handle better and they feel the working end (where the blades are) is more effective at removing tobacco.
In the beginning, the original working plans for the PerfecDraw called for a certain distance between the blades to have room to collect tobacco. The problem was the spiral design. The spiral design causes tremendous torque during the machining process, causing the vast majority of the shafts to corkscrew or break during the machining. This also made it impossible to automate the manufacturing process, so it took individual machinists to machine them one at a time – and still more than 80% corkscrewed or broke during manufacturing. So the manufacturing costs were crazy-high.
The spiral design was stretched out as far as possible to create as much room as possible between the blades, but not nearly as much distance as my original design called for. It was impossible to stretch it out any more because of the torque. In fact, the first factory to make the PerfecDraw refused to continue manufacturing them because they lost money. So there wasn’t as much distance between the blades to collect tobacco as I originally wanted.
Because the extreme manufacturing costs were unsustainable, we finally got to the point of choosing between shutting down the company or somehow reducing the costs. I kept the shape of the sharp head of the shaft exactly the same, but re-designed the blades into four separate rings of blades instead of 4 rotations of a spiral design. I was then able to move the rows of blades apart to exactly the distance I had originally called for.
This created less torque during manufacture, so I was also able to make the central shaft within the blades even thinner, giving even more room to collect tobacco. The outer diameter of the blades is identical, but the depth between the outer diameter of the blades and the inner shaft diameter is greater, and the distance between the rows of blades is greater – resulting in more effectiveness to collect tobacco.
I also made the shaft ¼” longer. Some customers suggested more length of the shaft, but of course I wanted this to be as compact and portable as possible. Now, with ¼” additional length, going by the length of a Churchill cigar, if the plug or knot is dead-center, when approaching the knot from both ends, the shaft overlaps enough in the center to be very effective at clearing the knot.
The vast majority of customers indicated that they do not put the PerfecDraw in their pocket, and instead keep it with their cutters and lighters in some sort of kit.
The only real complaint with the first version was the cost of $39.95. Many told me not to worry about that because it was worth every cent. That’s nice, but still, this was a very, very common complaint. Yet, even at $39.95 the overhead was unsustainable. So when redesigning, lowering the cost was a primary goal.
Since very, very few used the pocket clip, that was the first thing to go. The pocket clip was responsible for a sizable portion of manufacturing cost. It involved three separate pieces (the pocket clip, the cap to hold the clip in, and a bushing to hold the cap on), plus the cost of assembling the pieces.
The sharpness and angles of the blades, as well as the three longitudinal “tobacco pulling channels” has not changed at all. The materials are exactly the same – surgical 304 stainless steel shaft, aerospace grade 6061-T aluminum housing with 25 micron deep anodized hard coat.
I had prototypes made, and was very happy that I personally felt the new design worked even better, and I had about a dozen other fans of the PerfecDraw try the prototypes, and each one said they liked it too.
When we received the new manufacturing design, which was very close to when we would have gone into backorder, I immediately lowered the price by 25%, from $39.95 down to $29.95. The sales indeed did go up quickly, so then a week ago after making many calculations and predictions, I determined that $24.95 would be a breakeven number. That is about a 37% lower price. My goal is to get the PerfecDraw “out there”, so profit is not a concern at this time. And I believe that at $24.95, we will no longer lose money.
So to read your reaction has taken me back quite a bit to say the least.
When the new manufacturing batch arrived with the new design, I carefully inspected 200 of them taken randomly from different boxes we received. I found no problems at all, so I’m wondering what you mean when you say that the shafts no longer quite fit in the sleeve correctly. Can you please explain what this means? Also, I don’t understand what you mean when you say that there are sharp edges on the cap when you close it. Do you mean there are burs of metal sticking out? I certainly have not seen anything like that.
I’m very happy to provide a full refund for you. I can have my staff email you a return shipping label. All you need to do is to put the 4 PerfecDraws into the original boxes (I assume you still have the white boxes) and use the return shipping label to ship them back to us. We will even pay for the postage to return them. Upon receipt we will immediately make a full refund.
I am anxious to see exactly what you are referring to regarding the shafts not fitting the sleeves and the sharp edges on the caps (I assume you mean the handles) when we receive them.
Thanks Adam.
Very best regards,
Rod
Dr. Rod Kurthy
Founder/CEO
Perfec Cigar Solutions, Inc.
Home of the PerfecDraw®
5 Vanderbilt
Irvine, CA 92618
Email:
Rod@PerfecCigarSolutions.com
(949) 636-7055
Fax: (949) 713-0919
www.PerfecDraw.com