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| loaded semi |
So you want to buy a clog factory? Or maybe I should just say, do you want to buy some specialized machines, shoe lasts and leather to produce your own clogs? YES we do!
For years, we have been talking about making our Tessa Clogs here in the mountain of Colorado. Tessa has been painting our clogs here since day one but we have worked with many manufacturers in Sweden who have built them to our specifications.
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| unloading the 2000lb press |
We have decided to open a new chapter in Tessa Clogs / Swedish Clog Cabin with ourselves manufacturing our own clogs.
Setting up a factory - we truly thought would be moderate hard maybe not exactly like buying a new refrigerator and plugging it in but hoping it to be close to that. NOPE - our challenges have been everything from mitigating noise, getting permission to run iron pipe for our compressor, getting 3 phase electric machines to work in a single phase environment, transporting thousands of pounds of machines to the mountains, etc. Everyone understands stress and we are dealing with a bit trying to get ourselves to understand that getting a factory up and running is NOT an overnight thing. It takes time. As our landlord for our warehouse space said - if it was easy, everybody would be doing it.
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| the press set up |
Part of our problem here in the mountains is that rent is not affordable close to all of our ski areas. Plus, we did not want to have to drive an hour or more to get to our factory where the rent would be reasonable. We are lucky and blessed, we found a warehouse space that is a fair price, the perfect size and it is between our house and store. One issue, we share an adjoining wall with a friend of ours whose office (Vail Mountain Coffee and Tea) is next door. The last thing we want to be is bad neighbors so we have been working hard to work on ways to control noise. One of our biggest concerns for noise is our industrial 80 gallon 2 stage, 3 phase electric LOUD compressor. With the work of our other neighbor, Masked Man Services, we will share his compressor that is in a separate building, run iron pipe over to our building (20+ feet) so we can then run all of our machines with out a compressor making noise in our space.
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| unloading semi |
We are up and running but do not have some of our high power 3 phase machines working yet. We will have these machines running and in production at the beginning of July. Our biggest challenge now (or I should just say decision) is getting power to run these big machines. Long story short - we either need to run new service (which we are lucky being that it is at the building but not wired) or purchase a converter. Price is the same for both so just need to make a decision. We are going to run 3 phase to our space. Another hurdle jumped over and decision made and a full night of sleep coming soon.
We are making Tessa Clogs locally. How COOL IS THAT! Stayed Tuned - because we are making clogs locally, we will have new styles all of the time. Keep checking back OR let us know what you need and we will make the custom Tessa Clog just for you.
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| items on porch being transitioned to factory |
ps -
This is a big shout out to everybody that helped the day the semi arrived - Kyla & George Sink (
Vail Power Cars - the best way to get to Vail) , Spencer, Craig and Chris at
Vail Mountain Coffee & Tea (Fuel Your Adventure), David Meyers (a Superman in welding, can build, weld anything, he currently is making adaptive cycles for
Reactive Adaptation), and Buck (he is the worlds best handy man - he can fix anything!). Lou at
Thank You Masked Man Services - thank you for letting us share your compressor to keep the noise down and the village happy.
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| heavy duty sewing machine |
The saying "it takes a village" is the true sense of all the businesses that are located in the same area we are renting our warehouse space - the Meadow Mountain Business Park in Minturn - all of you are wonderful and we truly appreciate all the help that everyone has given us.
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| lasting machine to make clog shape |
