**IMPORTANT CHANGES REGARDING LEAD TIMES**

"Hey Scott, what is your lead time"

Translation - "I'm really excited about getting my new leather and I hope you can get it to me right away"

Believe me, I understand. I've been there and sometimes the wait is excruciating.

As much as I wish this was a full time endeavor for me, it is not. When I get home from my real job in the evening, I handle my domestic responsibilities as a husband and a father first, then spend what time I have working on crafting your leather. Weekends are mostly spent cutting, stitching, dyeing and forming leather. Many of the duties around home are neglected while I do my thing. Thank goodness the kids are getting old enough to take up some of the slack. If you know of any secret motivational tactics, please share! Basically, this is my second job, but the job I love.

So, with what I have to work with, sometimes things come up. Broken refrigerators, vehicles breaking down, kids music recitals or just some R&R. These are all things that can slow down my anticipated schedule. Believe it or not, sometimes I make mistakes on a project. More often than not this seems to happen near the end of a project rather than at the beginning. This means I start over from scratch.  Making up for this lost time is nearly impossible. I refuse to take shortcuts and compromise quality.

So, due to the difficult nature of trying to predict the future, I am now posting the time frame of the orders I am currently working on.

I value your business, but the situation is fluid. Thank you in advance for your understanding.

Regards,

Scott

Update 6/15/11

Refunds - As you know, my policy is for payment in advance. This can raise some eyebrows when lead times get out to 6 - 8 months or longer. Think of it as price protection. I have found that when I didn't enforce that policy, people would just want to be put in line then forget about it, often getting something else. Being a business, I try to forecast my work for supplies, income etc. Orders that get dropped, believe it or not, can through a real monkey wrench into the plan.

So, for orders that are now all paid in advance, if the order is cancelled before delivery, there will be a 30% charge taken against the refund. I want my customers to be sure they understand there is a wait time for their order, and though I do my best to keep these times to a minimum, the reality is that my order list continues to grow. This fee is to cover special order gun molds, specific leather purchase to cover the holsters etc.

Thank you for your business!