New belt maker looks awesome.

Got my measuring belt today. Strangely it had two extra nuts but not screws.

I'm still undecided about the width of the rear part and it seems jura thinks that when I said 55mm that I was talking about the actual hole, and not the width of the spread itself. He said he uses 43mm and that's on his "upper limit" of what is comfortable for him, the default is 40mm, but the measuring belt is 53mm wide.

 

Any updates anyone? I haven't heard from jura in a month

 

Nope, I asked on the new waistbands he quoted me (and that I paid for), no response unfortunately.

 

wait I thought you returned/refunded it.

 

That was the Fetish Tools belt - for Jura, I have it in hand but over the 2 year duration I put on some weight and it fits too tightly to wear for more than a few hrs.

 

Try a drill to slightly enlarge hole.
Use oil to reduce friction on drill bit.

 

New tweet from 1 hour ago (From this comment), jura's tested positive. Maybe he'll spend time going through emails now, just maybe...

 

Well that isn't good news, hope he 1) responds and 2) doesn't get carted off somewhere...

 

I got a replay yesterday, but the reply was a generic business style response that doesn't exactly answer or confirm anything

I asked how far down the queue is my order and if there are any updates basically

he answered:

On the context of covid, china's had quite a political backlash recently due to the harsh lockdowns recently due to people unable to escape an apartment during a fire and died.

I think "a few days" is quite an understatement lol

Anyways if the other parts he's telling the truth, that means that he's probably producing them all simultaneously in one big batch, unlike what I had initially thought (e.g. due to my order being the last of september's limited orders and having my measurements being confirmed later than normal, that it would be at the end of the line and he would progressively make lets say 5 at once, so once he starts the last order, the first order would probably be like 75% complete, and he would sand down/polish the first batches before continuing on with the other orders or something)

 

He replied to me as well- essentially the same message regarding his illness and general disruptions in supplies/fulfillment.

Anyone's guess when things will clear up...

 

I asked how jura was and got a response in only 12 hours. Apparently he could be recovering from covid still...

I asked him what the plugs were made of because if I intended to get some, I was going to get some at a later date, and wanted to know what they were made of because I intend to use them up to 2 days at a time, mostly for how easy it is to clean and its resistance to digestion and breaking down (biodegradability). Turns out PA12 is a type of nylon. Unfortunately however, it is known for printing porous, which explains the micro-pitted look in the photos which means it will likely be hard to clean and also explains why many twitter users with the 3d printed plug all use a condom with the plug.

The drawing he's referring to is a little concept I drew up on ms paint as a method to get a standard disposable security seal to work with the cocoon belt.

 

Still no news since 17 January. I've asked twice since then for any updates, pictures or anything even if the belt isn't finished yet.

Btw interestingly I thought I should mention that out of the plug designs available, there are only 4 models ever made. The standard which you'll see most often with min-max dimensions of 22.3-36mm and 19.6-30mm respectively, jura's own custom design which is more straight, and ccontrol's one which you'll see in the below album:

So I think ccontrol is the only one who's ever ordered a custom telamon plug to date.

 

I just popped in today to see if anyone had news on Jura and his status on taking orders. We really want to go with his belt for the next one.

 

I would hold off - zbovka has a full belt overdue, I have new a new waistband which ideally should have been sorted quickly. Last word was illness, then general COVID in China issues, lunar new year...

 

Definitely, but sadly agree.

 

The illness was from december, he had covid. He said he was feeling better as mentioned before early january, and if you have symptoms lasting more than 3 weeks, you'd probably be dying or dead due to the slippery slope effect of the doubling-rate nature of viruses and the alike, or you'd have contracted another variant or unrelated virus or other unrelated illness(es) catalysed by covid.

I'd understand if there was a 2 week delay from chinese new years since chinese new years kinda lasts, well 5 days and causes quite a massive disruption in china, but unless he and his assistants (assumed so because he mentioned "we") all went on holiday, and he did use definitive words ("will work at the end of the month, or a few more days later, due to spring break") although I could just be over-reading into it.

 

Good thing I waited on sending an email about ranting about his lack of communication, but here's his response:

This is actually quite problematic the more I look into it, because not only did paypal charge me an extra ~$50 over their +3% AUD->USD conversion rate for no reason, I'll have to pay extra shipping charges (which could be in the $100s+ range if he doesnt choose a service properly), and will need to file a decleration, pay an import processing fee if he declares the actual goods price (which ironically i have not seen a single chinese merchant actually do to date, probably to keep GST costs as low as possible), which would already push extra costs upwards to potentially 20% of the cost of the belt, as expensive as it already is. Not even my car is as expensive as the full cost of this belt btw.
All of this hassle is only because the belt costs more than $1000, and whether or not I'll have to go through this hassle highly depends on if he decides to declare the value of the parcel to be more than $1000 itself.
But because its a valuable parcel, there's also downsides to declaring less than actual value. Because he uses a premium courier service, he could be paid back if something goes wrong (e.g. parcel ends up in north korea somehow) but he would only get paid back in relation to how much he declares on the parcel.

The weird thing is that this is likely not the first time hes had to ship to AU. He had a customer in AU according to what ive seen on twitter before he had an american customer afaik (but this was before he had his international website and he was dealing through taobao, and nobody uses taobao unless they already know the process hassle and are experience enough to deal with it on a regular basis).

Maybe someone who lives in AU could help me with this?

PS also it annoys me that he still delays giving pictures even though they're basically done (I asked many times that I wanted some pictures of the belt, even if it wasnt anywhere finished)

 

The list of reasons why he's not producing grows ever longer ...

Just to be clear, I did not order my belt thru taobao. I dealt with him directly via Twitter DMs and email.

 

This is so disheartening. It's starting to look like no one is having any real success with any of the new, sleek belts.

 

Turns out he always declares a lower value (less than $500) which will avoid that >$1000 double tax issue. He's charging $49.50 USD for the measurement belt delivery to AU and $84.3 for the final product. He reckons he'll be able to ship it within a day from when I pay the shipping costs, but he uhh

well he may have sent the wrong photos after a week from when he promised (he initially blamed it on his assistant forgetting to take the pictures) that he would send photos of the belt

I ordered a telfon finished tube + brushed belt, he sent 2 images, one with a set of 3 cages, and a second with a polished cage + brushed belt finish, and honestly looking at the brushwork I probably should've gone for the polished finish because it definitely looks rougher in the photos he sent. The reason why I originally ordered brushed finished belt because I know the polished belt will get scratches over time and would look ugly.

Also the "dihedral" on the hips (the angle which the waist band meets the human body over the hips, its thinner at the top and slightly wider at the bottom of the belt) is a lot less than the measurement belt and the older cocoon model (you can differentiate it by how the crotch is rivetted to the waist band). The measurement belt has maybe 20 degrees of dihedral on each side (40 degrees combined) and on the finished product it seems to only be about -5 to 10 degrees depending on the viewing angle (negative at the front?!? wtf!). On the shop images, its about 15 degrees a side on the older models and looks to be about 10 degrees on the newer model.

Thinking back, he never asked me if I wanted a thin tube, a normal tube or the wide tube design, nor did he ask if I wanted the old or new cocoon model (both of which have images on the shop)

I might just be overthinking things but you know.... (images below)

Spoiler

This is supposed to be my belt (presumably incorrect due to the incorrect tube, it's supposed to be teflon coated, otherwise it was taken before the teflon coating)

Compare to the twitter image which uses the same new design:

(This second image was taken from his twitter as a comparison, probably only perfected to this extent as a marketting tool since it was captioned the boy breaker, referencing a meme picture of the neosteel belt with a ludicrously huge custom rear plug)

Here's the old design, with a much more pronounced dihedral:


Also fyi, this picture was also sent with "my" belt pics which unless he took it after the other image, is completely irrelevant (also the closer tube has considerably discolouration especially at the bottom, almost as if it has exposed primer or rust or something at the bottom where it would connect to the rear band):

I could also prove that the measurement belt has considerably dihedral (a little excessive at that) but i cant be bothered taking the picture, transfering it to my pc and then downsizing it to upload atm

edit: Looking back at @Chaste Nole's and @Wolle123's photos (Which seems to be the old design), they doesn't have much dihedral either

but @AgentGreen's and @ccontrol's seem fine...

 

Hearing my new waistband should ship within a week, will post an update if it does

 

I think my belt will be shipped around the same time next week or the week after. The images are indeed correct apparently, the waist band is mind but the front section was just a placeholder to keep the belt steady as they bend it to shape. He didn't specify but the one with the rusty looking bottom is likely mine unfortunately. Fingers crossed it's just some weird reflection effect and that I'm just overreacting.

I ended up making a last minute request to apply teflon to the rear band to mitigate the effect of my butt cheeks sticking too much to the metal (it hasnt been done before out of fears that the coating will crack as you bend it to shape, so I'll probably be first ever wearer with a teflon rear strap) so he'll charge me $16 extra for it.

I noticed a teflon front is now the cheapest option interestingly, because he usually does the teflon coatings in batches, they're cheap but because it was a last minute decision the teflon coater charges extra, but if it means that I'll be able to wear the belt for much longer without chafing, I think it's worth it and rather than waiting another few months for him to do them with another batch.

I asked for pictures of the other parts but he didn't seem to pay much attention to that request or forgot about it again.

Just curious, how much does a waistband cost?

 

That's great news for both of you. I'm really glad to hear that this all may be working out.

I'm still torn between Coccoon (Jura) and FetishTools so I'll be curious to hear about both items when they arrive.

Thanks for sharing.

 

Hi Zbovka - the waistband was $160 plus $52 shipping to the US, not too bad.

 

Well so much for the $16 "express" service costs. No response since.