ohhh come on postie! (Gimme that Zing!)

Okay I know I only finally ordered after close of business last night, but I had been hovering over the buy button for 3 days, surely that counts for something?
Okay okay I know it doesnt really but it seems so long ago that I was at the point of clicking on buy..................
"Enough!" you say "What is it?"
Okay so before I do the big reveal, you all know that I have been burbling on about MTC, and if it wasnt for MTC putting their name to this I wouldnt even have considered it! Seriously!
The thing about MTC is I like their philosophy. I like what they do, and I like the way they operate! I know of NO OTHER company which offers as much support as they do, which listens to its customers the way they do, which responds to its customers the way they do! And being a "jaded" uk crafter, that actually says quite a lot!
If you have 2 cutting machines, then IMHO you NEED MTC! Heck if you only have 1 cutting machine , you NEED MTC, because it opens all the other cutting files up for you!
"Okay we get the message!"you're screaming about now.

So some background: the opening shots on C&C, and throughout the program the other day did do close ups on something I had designed myself in MTC:

Now I'm not saying that is was simple to do, what I am saying is that without MTC showing me how to do it, I wouldnt have done it. I wouldnt have had a clue where to start!
Now the problem I had was the amount of time it took to cut, as its a very detailed cut file, loads of small cut lines, shed loads of score lines! It took over 1 hr to cut! And when you cut one for practice, then do a bit of adjustment, then cut again, adjust a bit more, then cut, and find a mistake, and the finally cut on the good stuff.....Well thats 5 hrs gone! And I was cutting on 2 machines, the Cameo, and the E-craft, and even within their own programs, and it made no difference!
"Hmmn, pretty but at that length of time to cut, not really practical!" Which was my point exactly! So I asked the guys at MTC wether there was anything I could do to speed it up? "Well its very detailed," they said, "But you can reduce some of it, (so they told me how), but even that isnt going to speed it up very much on the machines your using."
"So what machine would speed it up then?" Was my response.
"The Zing or any KNK machine."
"Huh?" Now I have heard of KNK, being on MTC you cant fail to notice KNK, but I had heard of it before, almost exclusively in USA blogs.  I do know that it is considered a whizz bang machine, but to my knowledge it wasnt available in the uk.
So I started hunting, I must admit, that I wasnt the only one hunting, my partner in craft, FG (Fairy Godmother) was hunting too, and as of Tuesday night, we have been soooooooooooooooo close to pressing the buy button on MTC!
But we didnt!
Why? Because we couldnt find a UK distributor! There was NO WAY we were going to pay that money for something that had no support here in the UK! As we looked more and more, we could find no distributor, and it looked like if it went wrong then we would have to pay to ship it to the States (Post office wanted £159!)!! Oh-o!
So we started asking questions! First off on the MTC forum, (Bow down and worship!), and emails to the KNK company in America. The MTC forum question was answered by the Vice-President at KNK, and he gave me contact details for someone in the UK, who would demo it for me.
The emails seem to have lost translation somewhere, must be the language barrier, and werent particularly helpful, on things like, whats the shipping going to cost if it goes wrong? No contact in the UK... the heart fell at this point, however, I was not to be put off lightly! So I emailed, again, and even set a clock on my desktop to Apopka time! The second email resulted in a phone call!
" No you wont have to pay to send it to the States if it goes wrong! There is a distributor who will do the servicing in the UK, if its simple to do, we will send you a video and the part, and you can do it yourself! Less time messing around waiting for it to be fixed! Support is in the UK. Chad has sent you the distributors contact details."
AHA so the contact details the VP had messaged me were the distributors contact details! But I had emailed this person and got no response in 24 hrs ish, can you tell I'm not a patient person?
Suddenly, yesterday, an email hit my inbox! It was the distributor! Apologies for the delay, internet failure for 24 hrs, loads of emails to weed through etc, yes, I am the distibutor, however you're in Lancashire, quite a way between us, I do the repairs, only had 2 repairs to do, one was really simple, 1 had to be returned to the states, etc, no postage is within the UK not to the states, etc etc..........
So I was sitting there with my finger on the enter credit card details button, and my Phone Moo-ed! Now those who know me , know that my phone Moo's, its my message tone, very embarrassing in the dairy aisle of the supermarket! But I always know I have a message, my Grandson even bought me a mug with cows and the words Moo all round it for mothersday, he's 3, lol, and he chose it, mainly because he always catches me using his mug, when he comes round,!
But back to the Moo! so I didnt click! I looked at the message "Get your finger OFF the buy button!" was the message from FG! Now normally I actually do this to her and she looks for a camera, me spying on her, I'm not I just know her too well, well that message left me looking for the camera I can tell you!
So finger came off the buy button, as we were just waiting for another email from the distributor, confirming some of what I have already told you about the number of repairs etc.
Finally the email came through! Woo-hoo! So find the page again, click on buy! Oho! Fraud prevention kicked in! Card refused, phone call from the back asking wether it had been me making this order, etc! okay then do it again, and the order will go through.
Hmmn, email the distributor, ask them to check wether the payment went through............... eventually check the bank balance, the money is still showing in my account, so finally lost my patience, waiting, bear in mind I had been waiting for 3 days! Go back to the page, and click buy! verification email recieved! 48hr delivery!
Problem is that it took me 3 days to find the answers, and due to the fraud prevention kicking in, I ordered after the close of business on Friday!! AAAAAaaaaaaargh! PATIENCE IS NOT MY MIDDLE NAME!

Now I am going to admit something here! I hadnt actually done that much research on the machine itself! The company yes, the machine itself, no! The fact that MTC support it is MORE than enough for me, I trust them that implicitly!
So I down loaded the manual for the Zing and how to use it in MTC. Boy did I learn a LOT! I had no idea that you could talk to the machine, and tell it what to do! Andy from MTC you are a GENIUS! He's the one who wrote Zing Speak, boy do I want to play with that!!
Set-up makes huge sense for me, the set up instructions are Fab! wish I could do that on my other machines!!
Right one last bit: What has concerned me all along is the fact that I couldnt find a UK distributor for the KNK machines. It wasnt mentioned on the forum for MTC or KNK. And its the one thing that held me back for 3 days, 3 very long days!!
So what did I do, well obviously I shared some of what I know on the MTC, and KNK forums! I happen to know that as a result of posting some of the details on MTC, another person is now just deciding on which KNK machine to buy, either the Zing like me or the Maxx. He couldnt find any info on UK support either, and that was stopping Him from ordering, just like it was stopping FG and Myself. So if it was stopping us 3 from ordering then it will also stop others in the UK from ordering.
If you are one of those who need to know that there is support for KNK machines in the UK, then honestly, hand on heart I tell you that there is support HERE! It might be the best kept secret ever, and I am not going to divulge the Distributors details, and yes I have researched the Distributor, as the Distributor researched me, lol, but they do exist, so order with confidence guys! ( Edited to add: the information for the KNK distributor is now available on the MTC Website. Thank you Sharon, xxx) ( Please also read ALL the comments, answers to questions are in there!)
Right enough from me, I'm off to twiddle my fingers for another few days! But at least I can craft now! I was that stressed with all this that I havent been able to do anything, I even left a brand new printer sitting on my craft desk, un-installed!

off to do some wind down crafting!

hugs

Lou


Ps Just checked my emails, and have one from Accugraphics confirming the order details, woo-hoo!