Upcoming Shop Closures & Order Notes – Please Read Carefully

New Note As Of 7/20/20. PLEASE READ OUR COVID-19 NOTE Thank you all so much for your support – it is immensely appreciated! We’re hard at work in the time of corona. Excepting our regular shop closures, GW & Peak Bamboo are open for e-commerce business. Keep tabs on our Covid-19 note linked above and we’ll update that with news that our warehouse is back open again to schedule bamboo pick-up visits just as soon as PA allows us to. Our next closure is tentatively scheduled for August 28th – September 7th, but is subject to change. Like the rest of the world, many of our plans are on hold and subject to the whims of governments at home and abroad. Plan ahead, order ahead – it’s not unusual for us to have the “Patience” slider posted on the front page of the website and that means our backlog on custom parts is deeper than the usual 7-10 business days. While I do need to incorporate some family plans as we have the opportunity to travel, I expect to become more strict about five weeks of work with ten day breaks in the gaps between working spans. Please keep tabs on this text block as there may be other closures to accommodate two writing projects I’ve gotten involved with. All of you, and your families, too: Please Stay Safe & Stay Healthy!

Cork.  A lot of makers have discovered our A+ cork. For the first time I can recall, we are sold out of bagged A+ before our next shipment is scheduled to arrive. If you know you want a bag of A+ or A cork (250 rings in a bag sealed at the factory….all the gems and all the ‘padding’…just as we receive it), please visit our cork page for more info on signing up for one or two bags – PRIOR TO SEPTEMBER 1ST. My supplier indicates that the current batch, arriving in late September or early October, is very nice. Can’t wait to see it!

Telephone.  I respond, by email, to requests for a phone call several times each week. For better or worse, as mentioned on our Contact page, there is no phone in the GW shop and I haven’t done phone consults for years. I respond to emails every weekday morning that the shop is open and my responses to your questions often wind up on the GW site where they benefit everyone who is curious about similar products or processes. Once I descend into my cave (or, soon, ascend into the turret), I’m making parts for the day. If you order bamboo for pick-up at the millhouse, I’m happy to chat face to face if I’m working there (sometimes Drake manages the warehouse without me). If everything goes according to plan, you’ll have the opportunity to see a lot more of my hands this fall & winter once Drake starts filming our new educational videos for The Atelier at Golden Witch.

Departures.  Two particular items of note here.  First, you all know Pearsall’s silk supplies are dwindling rapidly.  When the price of our regular inventory hits $12.95/spool, that means we have 48 or fewer spools.  That’s our max price for GW’s original inventory.  We did buy out one retiring rodmaker, so we have a very limited number of spools at higher prices.  Sorry fellows, but we’re not planning to buy out any additional silk stashes.  When this stuff sells down, it’s gone.  Also soon to be gone is the wonderful bamboo torch we sell.  Please read all about that on the torch page. Get one while you can.

Missing Emails..  If you think we’ve ignored an email that you sent, please check your spam or junk file because we diligently respond to all customer emails (many emails have gone astray recently). Thanks! Head’s up…Yes, we’ve moved our offices and small parts inventory. For the time being, our basic contact info has NOT changed…same P.O. Box for ferrule replacements & silk matching. Keep tabs on the contact page and we’ll update info as needed. We’ve posted Moving Sale prices on the Peak Bamboo inventory – stock up, have fun! We have not yet secured warehouse space for the bamboo in our new location, so the bamboo sale prices will hold until we get the stuff moved, however long that takes.

Custom Parts & Special Orders.  Please order custom products – agate guides, anything that must be blued, that sort of thing – at least four weeks prior to the start of any future shop closure if you want the order shipped with utter certainty before the closure; custom orders with shorter lead times may be completed, and often are, but no promises. Orders with only non-custom items usually ship the business day after you place the order, even in the run-up towards a shop closure; we hustle to get your orders out the door and in your hands. It is worth noting, by way of explanation, that one of the US guide making operations has closed down. I was busy at the bench before this happened, but now I’m swamped. This means you must plan ahead if you want guides because I rarely ship in less than two weeks and it often ranges up to three weeks. The prices will be rising slightly on all custom items as part of my effort to both find a better work/life balance and to stock up on parts for what looks like a busy year ahead. One of our good clients pointed out that we didn’t have a straightforward method outlined for making special orders. Please see our Contact page or our Shipping Policy page for new details on Special Order items.

Combining Orders & Shipping Rates.  Please take the time to read our shipping policy page linked at the bottom of this note. In brief, we do NOT combine orders. If you forget to order something, even if you figure this out one minute after you placed an order, please place a separate order and expect to pay shipping on that separate order. Please don’t complain about shipping prices. The craftsman making your guides and many other parts is the same fellow spending hours at the packing bench. If anything, rates on heavy items and small orders are going to go up. Free domestic shipping is available on orders over $500.00 in small parts and lots of makers take advantage of that; this free shipping deal was a trial program that we’ve kept because it benefits both parties…free shipping for you and reduced paperwork & packing time for Nikki & me.

Freebies.  As many of you have noticed, we’ve switched up our freebies over the past couple months and now we’re sending out scads of vintage parts, mostly all-metal tips and guides. I realized I’ll never sell through the half million or so guides (really, that’s not an exaggeration) taking up room on the GW shelves, so I’m giving many away. My hope is that when you receive something that’s a little oddball relative to the normal parts you order, you’ll be inspired to create a rod that fits the free components. Try making a boat rod, a trolling rod, a casting rod, a spinning rod, a coarse rod, or a light flyrod that can benefit from teeny prong tiptops. Please don’t throw the vintage parts away – they have real, practical, value in our world of angling craftsmen and women. Trade them. Gift them. Help them find a home on custom crafted tackle. Giving away thousands of dollars’ worth of inventory may seem like an odd way to stay in business, but I’m gambling on the fact that when you put these parts to good use, you’ll need ferrules, silks, cork, and more. We’re going to give away parts until they are gone, which will take years. Sorry – no requests on freebies. If I have to dig for particular items, they’re billed at retail.

Closure Math.  I tend to work non-stop when the shop is open, so I sincerely appreciate your understanding during those times when I shut down to spend time with family, especially now that the boys are out of the house and, frequently, far from home. You may notice a trend here, a new work rhythm that I’m experimenting with so I don’t burn out. Rather than pretending to take weekends off, which rarely happens, I bundle my down time and skip town so I can’t work. Despite appearances, this means the shop is only sealed up about 86 days per year vs. 124+ days per year if I actually didn’t work on weekends and took four weeks of vacation, plus Federal holidays, to match my wife’s vacation time. I offer the math because a few folks have noted that “it seems like GW is always on vacation.” Generally speaking, the shop will be open for 5-7 weeks, then closed for a week with a ramp-down Friday and ramp-up Monday on both ends of the closed week although that sort of neatly planned closure doesn’t always pan out. We’re closed on most major U.S. holidays: New Years, Ground Hog’s Day, Easter, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, & Christmas. Everyone involved here – Matt, Nikki, Drake, & I - appreciates your business and your patience with custom orders. Golden Witch & Peak Bamboo couldn’t do what we do without you.

Please see our Shipping Rates, Terms & Conditions Page for general shipping Q&A.

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