I ordered a sub enclosure from Elemental last month and as of 1/31 the box was first listed as Under Construction.

Then on 2/5 it was listed as In Woodshop and has been since 2/6

I called last Monday and was told it was still in the shop to be painted and would "probably be shipped Wednesday or Thursday"

Still no update and I'm getting frustrated.

Should it really take 3 weeks to construct and paint a box? I'm going to call again Monday and ask what's up, I've already recieved the sub and the amp (which was on backorder and came before the box), but I just wanted to vent...

 

Possibly?? I wouldn't whine about it much as long as the end result is good. Better to take the time and make it right than hurry and make it 1/2 assed.

 

3 weeks

im working on month #7 with mine... im taking my time with the guy whose shop it is sitting in, and making sure that i do it right... after all, this is my first fiberglass box

 

Well if you really wanted to hurry and only had 1 to work on it would go something like this:

Day 1 : Build a wooden sturcture and then cover it with cloth
Day2 - Slap some layers of fiberglass and resin on
Day3 - Sand the shiznit outta the thing
Day4 - Slap some primer on and then sand some more
Day5 - Do some final fine sanding and clean it up and slap on some more primer
Day - 6&7 It's the weekend, no working
Day8 - Slap the first part of the paint on as well as the clear coat
Day9 - Wetsanding the clear coat with various grits and then buff it
Day10 - You're done and it's all ready to go

So basically I'm thinking your's is part of a batch and you should basically double or triple this time scale depending on how many there are being made. The only place you're going to save time doing a batch will be the painting and fiberglassing steps but the sanding is going to take longer so it evens out.

 

3 weeks is nothing. these are hand built custom stuff they are doing over there. Getting it painted alone probably added a week/week and a half.
Im pretty sure you will be happy as HECK when you see the quality of work they do.

 

With the amount work they probably have lined up I'd say it's right schedule. I have seen a fiberglass enclosure built, sanded, primed, painted and installed in 24 hours before. There is a shop here on in Myrtle Beach called Unreal Creations that a friend of mine owns and he has worked miracles right before my eyes. But he was totally dedicated to this project for those 24 hours so it's a little different.

I agree with everyone else it's better to wait for quality than to hurry and get 1/2 assed work.

 

Ok, just checking. I would have thought it would have been done by now.

It's not like some totally custom design or shape. Just a regular box they make that fits the sub...

It's this:





thanks

 

So I checked with elemental again today as they told me last week it should have shipped by the end of last week.

Apparently they had started the paint process but noticed it was assembled "slightly off." the feet were too short or something so they have to rebuild it. They said they will do so this week and it will ship out this Friday.

I knew something had to be wrong with it...

 

Not to mention, they don't take each enclosure through the whole process at once.... they cutout many boxes, assemble, then cover.... I'd say even without the mess-up, 2-3 weeks is still about right... I ordered mine one week ago so I'd think I'll get it sometime next week...

 

ok look on my profile pic, custom molded fiberglasstook the guy 2 days in house to do it.......and thats molded for me not just a square wood box, id be asking whats up?? or id be asking for a discount

 

My guess is that they do things in bunches. Basically...they wait till they get a certain number of orders, mass produce them and so forth.

It definitely doesn't take more than a few days to cut some straight angled pieces of wood, glue them together and paint them.

I don't really care if it takes 2-3 weeks if they tell you so up front. And the other problem is, why did I have to call 3 business days after they said it was to be shipped to find out they screwed up in the building process.

They were very good about emailing updates in the process until then, so why not simply say what happened and let me know as soon as they did.

Matter of fact, it seems that rather than getting a rebuilt box the day they found out, which was last Wed or Thurs, they waited until today to do anything about it.

The guy told me toady that the box would be rebuilt and sent to paint "right away" and ship out to me friday.

So this tells you it shouldn't take more than 1 week to get it done...but they more than likely wait until they have enough product to make at once rather than doing one by one upon order.

Either way, I'm hoping the product is worth the wait, which I'm more than confident it is. Just wanted to let others know.

 

We actually do the paint portion in batches because we really can't mix paint in batches small enough for that one enclosure. We'd end up wasting about 3x what went on the box.

Obviously it shouldn't have taken this long in the first place and I'm going to be having a chat with the guys in the woodshop about why such a simple box took so long. The issue with the tC enclosures likely delayed it since those all got put into the paint booth right away because of the fact that most of them were ordered in December.

 

Ok, just got of the phone with Elemental Designs.

Apparently now someone screwed up in the paint process. They said it got "pushed back" due to something that went wrong in the paint process, but he wasn't sure what.

So now they tell me it will be done and shipped by next Wednesday.

Unbelievable. I doubt I will ever order anything from ED again. I placed my order end of Jan and I won't get the box until March???

Let's just hope something else doesn't go wrong and they tell me it gets "pushed back" again.

If that happens, I'll probably send back the stuff I have no and go with someone else who can actually get the job done.

 

PM me your name/e-mail address, this is completely inexcusable.

 

PM sent. Thank you for your attention to the matter. I have only always heard good things about ED, and I've only had good experiences in the past, so I was a bit surprised about how this transaction was taking place...

 

you gota think too, fiberglassing takes a while... Psyco565 threw down a good example of a FAST job if you know what your doing and have a dead line.

i'm reconning... 2 maybe 3 months for me when i start HALF my project. the other half will take about a month.

 

This isn't fiberglass. It's a regular old wooden box like in the pic above...

 

I ordered my box on Feb 1st and its still in the wood shop. I ordered the underseat box and from what i understand it didnt fit when they wrapped it in carpet. I thought the guy on the phone said they would sand it down re wrap it and ship it out but i guess there was another issue. Its all good though, im still deciding on an amp. lol

eD is a great company, they shipped out my eDead fast and im sure they dont delay things for stupid reasons. Id rather deal with the delay then receive a half assed product.

 

UPDATE: My box has shipped and its set to be delivered on Friday