Thanks! Many people had doubts after seeing results of 3D printing things like keyboard TOH's for Jolla, etc. While I don't mean any disrespect for 3D printing DIY'yers here - in fact, they're bunch super-creative people, and it's really nice to see that people are entering self-manufacturing with such enthusiasm - I understand why consumer 3D printing results may not match one's aesthetic.

That's why I've chosen CNC approach, which is much less common, and for good reasons - one need to gain heck of experience when building such manufacturing machine, to achieve desired results. Many caveats along the way (if some of you remember my early video footages of CNC machine and would compare it with it's current look, it could be hardly called the same unit - it was reworked and tweaked so many times...), and inaccuracy margin is much smaller, not to mention higher possibility of damaging own hard-build equipment (more likely) or self health (less likely, but still possible with mill razor turning 24000 times per minute with 2kW of power, and accelerating cut-off metal particles adequately).

Anyway, I hope that final results of flat backcover aesthetic are satisfying to you as they are to me - it looks elegant, yet sturdy. Custom finish methods may make them look more badass (for example, leaving traces of CNC mill) or "mainstream" (for example, choosing glossy lacquer variant, instead of matte). Peersonally, I'm "waiting" for the fat version, as it's what I'll be using every day in real-life applications not to mention the tripod launch, that, if someone still remembers that, was a spark that started this project alltogether.

After that, the most exciting part - whole body replacement. This one is going to be definitely tricky to polish (radios), and overall, whole lotta heck of a challenge to integrate properly, considering the amount of functional features we want to add (sourcing shielded hirose u.FL to regular mini antennae adapters with good quality builds and affordable price, for example... And ones possible to dissasembly, as we will need to modify them for our needs (3 hirose ends, one regular antenna end). Eagerly looking forward to meet those challenges!
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From organizational announcements - we're going to close backcover pre-order donations in two weeks - soon to be replaced by regular "orders". It would be quite unfair to allow people get the same "goodies" pre-ordering 2 days before backcovers become readily available for purchase, as we have offered to early supporters. Anyway, if you want to donate counting for pre-order, it's the last chance . Full body replacement (and regular, non pre-order) donations will still be accepted, as the body thing is likely to require many expected and unexpected financial expenses.

Just as backcovers in both variants will start becoming ready for shipping, all past pre-order people should expect mails (and other forms of contact) about details, choices, custom engravings, etc. This is going to be happy moment!

Cheers,
/Estel