When did you order your HDS?

[doctordun]

I applaud you folks who have the patience to wait over a year, especially when given a 4 to 6 week delivery date.
I've waited that long for a custom knife, but I knew going in that there was a wait and all I had to do was provide a deposit and pay the balance when it was ready to ship.

 

[thaugen]

I applaud you folks who have the patience to wait over a year, especially when given a 4 to 6 week delivery date.
I've waited that long for a custom knife, but I knew going in that there was a wait and all I had to do was provide a deposit and pay the balance when it was ready to ship.

I trust Henry and love his lights! I am sure he'll be back up and running shortly.

 

[wavicle]

I didn't realize the wait for HDS was so long when I ordered last month:mecry:But judging by all the + reviews, I'm pretty sure it'll be worth the wait. And even if the light doesn't float my boat, somebody else will give it a good home. I do hope HDS resolves the supply issues soon.

 

[slumber]

I ordered my hi cri on Tuesday Jan 8, and it arrived today Jan 11. It's awesome!!





Ok, it's a second hand Legacy Hi CRI 100 I snatched on a forum marketplace. Sorry for the tease, but I'm so happy with it. I had placed an order for one with Henry in late Dec 2011, but canceled my order when the quoted 4 weeks came and went. They are worth the wait, but at the time I needed the funds elsewhere. Hope production picks up soon as I'm still inclined to try the new XP-G Hi CRI.

 

[the.Mtn.Man]

I think once you get it, you will love it to bits. Since receiving mine few months back, I have been EDCing mine everyday even though I have many other lights.

I agree that the Rotary is a fantastic light, but Henry isn't doing himself any favors by continuing to promise an 8-week turnaround on orders when he knows full well that he won't be able to deliver. To be blunt, it starts to look like a character issue.

 

[pjandyho]

I agree that the Rotary is a fantastic light, but Henry isn't doing himself any favors by continuing to promise an 8-week turnaround on orders when he knows full well that he won't be able to deliver. To be blunt, it starts to look like a character issue.

I fully agree with that. To be honest, if not for the fact that he produces probably the best light around I most likely would have cancelled my order long ago.

 

[Cerealand]

From reading and following this thread for a long time, it looks like the wait will be forever. It seems at the end of 2012, everybody was saying January 2013 was the month that HDS will be back in full production and everybody will start getting their lights. Now I read that people are now expecting February 2013 to be that month for full production.

 

[AnAppleSnail]

From reading and following this thread for a long time, it looks like the wait will be forever. It seems at the end of 2012, everybody was saying January 2013 was the month that HDS will be back in full production and everybody will start getting their lights. Now I read that people are now expecting February 2013 to be that month for full production.

Wow. Usually when I argue with people about the state of a manufacturer, it's because of a cloudy issue. Fortunately, this isn't the case here. Heck, let's wildly assume a long-time member of the flashlight community is telling the truth: That he's had trouble finding a reliable machine shop to do work on a fixed budget. You'd see exactly this pattern.

Go to GoingGear.com or several other vendors of HDS gear, and you'll find new Cerakoted lights in stock (Or you could last week). Now, did GoingGear et al stash these on a back shelf to bring out later? Nope! They're new models. If there are new models coming out, you can hardly say that the wait is forever.

It seems like about every three pages of this thread, someone concludes that Henry is going to back out with everyone's money. The short memory of the internet is a terrible thing when it allows such slander. He is shipping orders in the order they were received. People waiting on Rotary orders have a longer wait because of the special parts. This isn't like (some other small-manufacturer) stuff, where some people's orders got eaten whole while others got lights. That led to a whole subforum nearly being closed as people argued whether the guy was a clumsy saint or a clever sinner.

Order and wait, Don't order and wait, Read the HDS story. But don't come up with the same scare story again and again without new information.

 

[mikekoz]

He should fill the orders he has and not take new orders until he gets his business running reliably again.

 

[Ragnar66]

Wow. Usually when I argue with people about the state of a manufacturer, it's because of a cloudy issue. Fortunately, this isn't the case here. Heck, let's wildly assume a long-time member of the flashlight community is telling the truth: That he's had trouble finding a reliable machine shop to do work on a fixed budget. You'd see exactly this pattern.

Go to GoingGear.com or several other vendors of HDS gear, and you'll find new Cerakoted lights in stock (Or you could last week). Now, did GoingGear et al stash these on a back shelf to bring out later? Nope! They're new models. If there are new models coming out, you can hardly say that the wait is forever.

It seems like about every three pages of this thread, someone concludes that Henry is going to back out with everyone's money. The short memory of the internet is a terrible thing when it allows such slander. He is shipping orders in the order they were received. People waiting on Rotary orders have a longer wait because of the special parts. This isn't like (some other small-manufacturer) stuff, where some people's orders got eaten whole while others got lights. That led to a whole subforum nearly being closed as people argued whether the guy was a clumsy saint or a clever sinner.

Order and wait, Don't order and wait, Read the HDS story. But don't come up with the same scare story again and again without new information.

I couldn't have said it better myself. Either buy it or don't.....but the suggestions he is doing this or that or whatever are ridiculous. Why post what you think you might think if you thought about it...... Give the guy a break or don't.......buy one and wait or don't. But post an update or at least read the thread as it has all been suggested or said.

 

[jrv]

He should fill the orders he has and not take new orders until he gets his business running reliably again.

Federal FTC rules do not allow him to hold customer money longer than 30 days without offering a refund. Filling orders to stores ahead of old orders (30+ days) without offering a refund could get him in trouble if someone files a complaint.

 

[pjandyho]

Federal FTC rules do not allow him to hold customer money longer than 30 days without offering a refund. Filling orders to stores ahead of old orders (30+ days) without offering a refund could get him in trouble if someone files a complaint.

And as far as I know, Henry has been very upright about fulfilling customer's refunds if they so choose to cancel their orders. So what's the point here with your post?

 

[Cerealand]

When did I say he was going to back out with everybody's money? The post was more about this unrealistic quote/timeframe. The 4-8 weeks answer is basically the dead false horse. This thread basically started because of the 4-8 weeks quote. We wanted to see when an HDS was ordered and when the light was actually received.

I've completely read several HDS thread (#13, #14, #15, #16)

Not making a scare story. Maybe its because I'm annoyed that he keep telling customers that it will be 4-8 weeks to get a light when he know that it's not true. You or I can email him right now. We can ask how long it will be to get a HDS light if we order today. We already know the answer/reply and it's not true.

I have a HDS and I love it. It has been my EDC for a while, but if the time frame to receive a light is 6 months to a year before receiving a light, please just let us know. I ordered many items that takes time to build. Just give me a realistic time frame and I'll wait. I have waited 6 months to over a year for many items. Don't tell me 1-2 months and disappoint the customer.

I don't see how anybody can defend him quoting an unrealistic time frame. Maybe at the beginning of the machine shop issue, the 4-8 weeks wait was an honest, best estimate of production. If you have a backlog of over a year, I don't see how you can still tell customers that it will just be 4-8 weeks.

 

[the.Mtn.Man]

It seems like about every three pages of this thread, someone concludes that Henry is going to back out with everyone's money.

Who has said this?

 

[nightshade]

I feel for Henry, I work with several machine shops because of the nature of my job. Trying to find a US shop that will take on small production runs and keep the quality up and price down can be VERY hard. I like the original HDS, Novatac and Arc 4 lights due to the smaller size.

 

[doctordun]

I just received an email response from Henry.
Here is a quote from the email:
"We had to fire our local machine shop for not delivering any parts after several months. It has taken far longer to find reliable replacement shops then we expected. After several false starts, we have finally found a few shops to produce our parts. Two shops have submitted first article samples that have been approved for production. We are qualifying two shops for each part so we will never have this problem again. We are expecting to have the backlog cleaned up by the end of February."

 

[nbp]

That is the same message he posted here quite a while ago. Only the month at the end has changed.

 

[the.Mtn.Man]

Indeed. That email looks suspiciously familiar. Henry told me almost the exact same thing last May (as in 2012):

"We had to fire our local shop for not delivering any parts after several months. The new shop is running late on the first article samples - I expect that approval this week. The production deliveries will be several weeks following that. It will take a couple of additional weeks after the parts are delivered to resume shipping. I apologize for the delay."

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb...stems-EDC-16&p=3948761&viewfull=1#post3948761

For the record, I did finally receive my high CRI Rotary around August 2012 which I had ordered the first week of January 2012.

 

[dillyspam]

I just ordered a pebble, interesting the way they handled it. you do not pay until they are ready to ship, what a novel idea. your total shows as "free" no CC info is asked for.

It seems to be the consensus that "end of FEB" is the target for ALL the backlog to clear. I have asked that either I get a light, or a refund on that date, or before.

 

[StandardBattery]

The new lights recently shipped to some dealers is a good sign that some progress on new production is being made, and it would appear reasonable based on this fact alone that there might be some good news soon. As most people reading this thread realize though, only specific facts like this should be used to judge the current state, no assurances or rumors are worth anything at this point. I do feel, as someone else posted, that the recent shipments should have been used to cover individual orders, and not gone to dealers. Qualifying a shop, and then getting them to make different runs for you are completely different things, not to mention ensuring the subsequent runs meet spec. As spring approaches the shops will get very busy with their other customers. Henry tried to run his own shop, it didn't work out any better. A completely honest company would not expect payment upfront, he could ask for a small % to reserve a spot, but that does not make sense if they are shipping to dealers before shipping to those that have reserved theirs. Anyway just my thought on these, love these lights, but it's painful to see how hard it is to make these a reality and that's not HDS's fault, it's a tough business, and all small business is tough, I just don't like how it's being handled given that he is a veteran, not a newbie to business or this particular business.