Not quite yet. Here's a brief update I shared on another forum and forgot to share here.
Lots of movement on the Era over the last few weeks. Preparing to scale into full production turned out to be a bit more problematic than expected. We've had to change the printing orientation of both head components to increase yield and speed up print times. There are some interesting and complicated technical reasons for this that I won't get into, but it's a nontrivial decision process. This also coincides with 3DEO bringing their next-gen printers online. These new models can print much faster and the new build volume allows for more efficient packing, even with the new print orientation. The takeaway from this switch is that production will be more dependable and robust as we increase production quantities. None of this changes the end product and we're feeling good about how this will impact our ability to scale production when required. We're doing a bit more testing on this now for validation and it's promising so far. The finish is now dialed in and full production is scheduled and will be starting imminently.
In the meantime, I've been using the finalized Era exclusively for the last couple weeks. You shouldn't take my word for it, but it's a good product. Really good. The blade clamping is insane and likely the best on the market (maybe the best possible for a DE?). The result of this is a shave that feels almost closer to an SE than a DE since the blade is so stable. It's really smooth at all levels with less blade feel than Blackland is generally known for and I'm loving the shaves. This release announcement has been a bit of a **** show, but I'm so proud of this thing that it doesn't matter. It's been nearly two years since we began and we'll keep pushing until it's finally in your hands.
It's clear a lot of work was put into making this, glad to see it's nearly ready. Congrats!
Question for you: if someone were torn between getting the Era or the Blackbird, how would you describe the feel of the two razors to help them make a decision?