Edited: 8/1/2025

First off, as always thank you all for your continued support in helping us make MachineWise the company that it is. We are continue to be incredibly surprised and grateful for the passion of the community around us. Running and growing a business like this is no small feat and it has been a continuous trial. We are as a company, first and foremost enthusiasts. We make the products we want to own and see in the market. We also make them to a standard that we can stand behind. A MachineWise product comes with a promise of machining excellence and pocket-ability. They come with our lifetime warranty behind them, a declaration that the product will last, but also that the company behind it will stand the test of time.

The story of the ROTA starts with the purchase of our Doosan Lynx lathe. We purchased our live tool lathe with a singular purpose: to bring the production of hardware for our core product lines under our roof. At the time we had a handle on hardware production and as a pen enthusiast I yearned to make a pen myself. With that in mind the ROTA was born. The ROTA was designed with function at the forefront. Seeking to make something fun to use and engage with that could earn its way into others EDC rotations. While the design executed on its intent for function and form. It fell short in a key area of being labor intensive to assemble. In that it takes a great amount of time to assemble an “acceptable” product. At first we thought this was associated with the open tolerances on the first production runs. However, as we refined the machining approaches it became clear that the issue was in the design itself. This realization comes off of having made a large production run of them and getting bound up in long assembly times. We have now arrived at the conclusion that the ROTA needs a redesign for production scale manufacturing.

I will never be willing to sell a subpar product or risk the sustainability of my company attempting to assemble a product at a loss of time. To be frank, MachineWise is small, and we are not at the point as a company where our existence is assured. Every day, month and year is an ongoing challenge to keep the business going and provide each of you with the products you love. The world is ever changing and our goal is to remain here for the long haul.

In conclusion the ROTA is not dead, it just needs time. Often I ask for patience and I will continue to do so. We will not take money for orders, preorders or the like until this product is 100%. Those that have been sold are examples of the product that took much love and finesse to bring to function. I greatly appreciate your continued enthusiasm around the product. When it is ready we will bring it to market in force.

We'd like to address some of the feedback we've heard regarding ROTA. Here's some of the common suggestions we've heard:

• MachineWise should outsource the ROTA.

This runs contrary to the core ethos of the company. Manufacturing in-house is what makes MachineWise, MachineWise.

• MachineWise should spin off the ROTA brand.

The pen design is currently not ready for mass production. It is something we may consider in the future after re-engineering. 

• MachineWise should scale up to produce the ROTA.

If only it were so simple! The ROTA in its most recent production run has taken too long in assembly to be viable. At MachineWise, quality is always our number one priority and we won't compromise on any of our products.

• Raise the price of the ROTA.

We don't plan to pass the price of a long assembly time on to our customers. Our goal is to make ROTA's as cost effective as possible to produce and manufacture. 

-Martin Blair & Deylan Crawford