Creative Inventions.. 4 x 8 USA

[JB Cases]

The good thing is the knock offs seemed to have included that in their designs also.. Vincitorre (sp) and Bently's are equally as shoddy.

JV

Well, I beg to differ. Instroke fixed all the issues and the knockoffs have not. Since I have taken apart dozens of those cases I can say it's 100% true.

But the Instrokes were not shoddy. Not at all. They were just not as strong as they could have been. They were actually stronger than the case they were modeled on, the JEF Q Case. Not being a leather worker I thought stupidly that if I copied the basic construction of the JEF case that it would be enough.

Since I had no long experience with my own JEF Q Case I had no idea that they were actually too weak to stand up to long and hard use. Thus when I made the Instroke cases I thought my choices were just fine. And I also didn't abuse my stuff or use it in a hard manner so I built according to my own habits.

I later learned through observation that people are much harder on their equipment than I am in general. I have seen folks dragging their cases across the floor. I don't care whose brand it is, Porper, Justis, Whitten, etc....none of them are made to be dragged across the carpet.

Why does Justis put a protection band around the bottom of his cases, on request? Well to protect the bottom of course but from what? The what is to protect it from hard use. With normal use there is no need to have such a metal band. And this is what it looks like after hard use anyway even with such a band.

New:

Used:

I would not say that Jack Justis' work is shoddy because his customers are really hard on his cases. Same with Instroke. You had a butterfly where the zipper came loose, it happens. But the vast majority of people with that same case have not had problems, or I should say that the vast majority has not reported similar problems to me. Now you could naturally jump to the conclusion that Instroke cases were made shoddily based on that case but in fact it was an exception and not the rule.

All we need to do is look at the history on the forums. If there was an epidemic of badly made Instroke cases then we would know about it from the public posts.

So to say that Instrokes are shoddy is a bit of a stretch in my opinion. They were never shoddy, just not as strong as they could have been. Still they were state-of-the art for the time.

 

[JB Cases]

Speaking of Porper cases my first "hard" case was a Porper and I loved that case. I got teased by the old timers in the MisCue Lounge down in South Florida for bringing a "golf bag" into the pool room. I think I might have been the first guy in that room with one of those cases.

My favorite Porper however was this one.

When I first saw that Porper had copied my Instroke Cowboy scallop design I was extremely flattered to go from being a customer to an inspiration.

To think that this case I put on the market in 1994 has endured almost 20 years and is now not only a classic design but has inspired so many clones and knockoffs I have to feel good about the fact that my design has provided so much to so many. It's humbling to know that anything you did has an impact. And it's still going strong.

And they are still making Red, White and Blue ones

 

[classiccues]

I wonder if the people you copy have the same feeling of flattery?

JV

When I first saw that Porper had copied my Instroke Cowboy scallop design I was extremely flattered to go from being a customer to an inspiration.

 

[classiccues]

Well you can beg to differ all you want. The reality is there are probably a ton of broken older instrokes that have been regulated to cue storage, and or discarded because of the faulty designs. Anyone can do a search and see that in AZ there were 2 dozen or so complaints on instroke repairs covering the latches and even the weakness of the strapping leather (not counting rsb). I will say in reviewing those posts it is refreshing that a US company gets paid to do those repairs.

Regarding Jacks band, if it takes the denting/damage and that is what it is for, then its working. I always thought it was a design accent, but I don't damage my cases.

JV

Well, I beg to differ. Instroke fixed all the issues and the knockoffs have not. Since I have taken apart dozens of those cases I can say it's 100% true.

But the Instrokes were not shoddy. Not at all. They were just not as strong as they could have been. They were actually stronger than the case they were modeled on, the JEF Q Case. Not being a leather worker I thought stupidly that if I copied the basic construction of the JEF case that it would be enough.

Since I had no long experience with my own JEF Q Case I had no idea that they were actually too weak to stand up to long and hard use. Thus when I made the Instroke cases I thought my choices were just fine. And I also didn't abuse my stuff or use it in a hard manner so I built according to my own habits.

I later learned through observation that people are much harder on their equipment than I am in general. I have seen folks dragging their cases across the floor. I don't care whose brand it is, Porper, Justis, Whitten, etc....none of them are made to be dragged across the carpet.

Why does Justis put a protection band around the bottom of his cases, on request? Well to protect the bottom of course but from what? The what is to protect it from hard use. With normal use there is no need to have such a metal band. And this is what it looks like after hard use anyway even with such a band.

I would not say that Jack Justis' work is shoddy because his customers are really hard on his cases. Same with Instroke. You had a butterfly where the zipper came loose, it happens. But the vast majority of people with that same case have not had problems, or I should say that the vast majority has not reported similar problems to me. Now you could naturally jump to the conclusion that Instroke cases were made shoddily based on that case but in fact it was an exception and not the rule.

All we need to do is look at the history on the forums. If there was an epidemic of badly made Instroke cases then we would know about it from the public posts.

So to say that Instrokes are shoddy is a bit of a stretch in my opinion. They were never shoddy, just not as strong as they could have been. Still they were state-of-the art for the time.

 

[Jive]

Well you can beg to differ all you want. The reality is there are probably a ton of broken older instrokes that have been regulated to cue storage, and or discarded because of the faulty designs. Anyone can do a search and see that in AZ there were 2 dozen or so complaints on instroke repairs covering the latches and even the weakness of the strapping leather (not counting rsb). I will say in reviewing those posts it is refreshing that a US company gets paid to do those repairs.

Regarding Jacks band, if it takes the denting/damage and that is what it is for, then its working. I always thought it was a design accent, but I don't damage my cases.

JV

You mentioned there's probably a ton of broken or discarded ones? I hate it when people don't have facts and purely speculate or exaggerate for the sake of sounding knowledgeable.

If you can find HALF a ton of those damaged ones I'll pay out of my own pocket for everyone of them. Infact I'll pay the price they bought plus 50% interest every year. That's only half the number you speak of.

Consider me a busy body.

Jive

 

[Jive]

To add, I only give 24 hours since you probably already know all of them that had broken stuff.

 

[classiccues]

Jive,
If there were 24 cases and lets say 8 of them suffered some sort of mishap and John says there are 30,000 cases, I think the math is easy to do. Its not an assumption, just simple statistics.

BTW just for the sake of math if you say 2 of 24, or 2400 or so of 30000 and the cases are 4 lbs each, you're still over a ton.

JV

You mentioned there's probably a ton of broken or discarded ones? I hate it when people don't have facts and purely speculate or exaggerate for the sake of sounding knowledgeable.

If you can find HALF a ton of those damaged ones I'll pay out of my own pocket for everyone of them. Infact I'll pay the price they bought plus 50% interest every year. That's only half the number you speak of.

Consider me a busy body.

Jive

 

[Jive]

Jive,
If there were 24 cases and lets say 8 of them suffered some sort of mishap and John says there are 30,000 cases, I think the math is easy to do. Its not an assumption, just simple statistics.

BTW just for the sake of math if you say 2 of 24, or 2400 or so of 30000 and the cases are 4 lbs each, you're still over a ton.

JV

I won't argue with the weight of the case for sure.

8 of 24 is 33.333% in another words 1 in 3 is damaged. 2 of 24 is 0.8333%.

Going back to numbers, if you mentioned that a ton is damaged that makes 2000 lbs of cases. Using your estimate weight that's 500 cases.

Now using either percentage you've provided that's to say under John's ownership of Instroke he either sold 1500 cases or 60,000 pcs.

Lets find that 250pcs of damaged cases that you know of.

 

[JB Cases]

I wonder if the people you copy have the same feeling of flattery?

JV

Maybe. Who did I copy? Can we ask them? Can you show me an example of a case that is a copy of someone else's case?

The only ones I can think of are the GTF cases which you reviewed and gave a decent score to. Those are of course done in the same style as the Fellinis and the last in a long line of brands using that style.

Otherwise I can't think of a "copy"? I do a case called a J.Flowers tribute but it's actually much different than the orginal "Flowers" (JEF Q Case).

This might help you to see those differences.

Now Jack thinks that the J.Flowers are closer to his and he is probably right because the modern cue case profile is closer to his. I was the first to do the long box pocket on the Instroke then Jack started doing it so now when it shows up on the J.Flowers Tributes with the western belt stamping type-tooling the look naturally has a bit of a Justis appearance to it. But those in the know such as yourself can instantly see that a J.Flowers isn't a Justis. And I think you have been quite vocal about reminding everyone of that.

Any others? I'd be happy if you could go through the list of cases here www.jbcases.com/casesbyname.html and tell us the names of the cases you think are copies of other people's work. I'd love to see the side-by-side comparisons and have the forum discuss your choices and see it they agree. Then if they agree we can ask the original makers if they were flattered by my attempts to copy their work.

Well you can beg to differ all you want. The reality is there are probably a ton of broken older instrokes that have been regulated to cue storage, and or discarded because of the faulty designs.

Could be. The only data I can go on is actual warranty claims. I know how many cases I was fixing because I was the one doing the fixing. But as I said, Instroke is still rocking the sales and all the issues have been fixed as far as I know. It's called continuous improvement.

I know I put it out there that I would repair or replace any Instroke so I doubt that a lot of people didn't know they could them fixed. I even did field repairs at shows and had a couple people helping me so they could earn extra money. I not only fixed broken Instrokes, generally at no charge, but I also repaired other brands including knockoffs.

I have taken Whitten cases and replaced the zippers, replaced snaps on Justis cases, replaced latches on It's George's (very difficult) and so on. I have worked on so many brands of cases that I lost track.

So maybe you are right Joe but my experience says otherwise. And as stated already, Instroke is still going strong so they must not be all bad.

Anyone can do a search and see that in AZ there were 2 dozen or so complaints on instroke repairs covering the latches and even the weakness of the strapping leather (not counting rsb). I will say in reviewing those posts it is refreshing that a US company gets paid to do those repairs.

Sure, two dozen complaints for a company with a 20 year history and well over 30,000 cases in the field. Not a bad track record if you ask me.

Regarding Jacks band, if it takes the denting/damage and that is what it is for, then its working. I always thought it was a design accent, but I don't damage my cases.

JV

Sure, of course that's what it's for, Jack calls it a protection band. He knows full well that cases get beat up on the bottom and his cases aren't much different than Instroke's are in the bottom construction. He may not agree since he uses a much thicker piece of wood but essentially they were very close. And as I said, when I first built them I thought what I was doing was really strong enough and it turns out I was wrong and had to redesign some of them.

You would need to check with Frank's Center to find out the rate of warranty claims now but last time I asked him a few years ago he said it's a few a month now.

 

[JB Cases]

Guys it's totally cool, let's not make this about Joe's incorrect assumptions. All case makers have had their design issues at one time or another. I just read that Jack changed his pockets to add a stiffener because the way he had been doing it allowed the pockets to get very saggy and look bad. Porper, the case highlighted here is well known for the cues eventually poking holes in the bottom as hey sink lower and lower into the hard foam. I don't know if they fixed that but I used to take them apart and have to add a little eva foam in the cavities and tape up the bottom as strongly as I could to create a barrier when I was tasked with repairing a Porper. Once in a while I would even replace the bottom with a piece of leather instead of the stock vinyl to give it a little more durability.

All cases face entropy. As soon as they leave the shop they start falling apart. Every jarring, every use loosens this, stretches that, rubs this, etc.... That's life. All we can do is try to slow it down.

Heck, the middle brown leather case here in my collection is one of my favorite Porpers and it has a big tear in the leather where the strap retainer is at the top. I am sure when Joe made it it seemed like a good idea at the time but in fact the retainer is facing the wrong direction and is over-stressed so it would absolutely be getting way to much pressure.

When I went to visit Long Chan once upon a time, my one and only visit to them, they showed me a Predator prototype that they wre very proud of. I noticed that they had designed the strap ring in the wrong direction.

I am OCD about this stuff so I couldn't help but to mention it. They had absolutely NO CLUE what I was saying so I asked them if I could demonstrate and proceed to break the case with very little effort. I then showed them the right way to do it and all Predator cases have been done that way ever since.

 

[Jive]

http://www.statisticbrain.com/automobile-recall-statistics/

Check this out. On average automobile manufacturers had more than 10% recalls...some even 30%...hmmm...these are the products that the entire family get into I'd say the "contents" would be worth more than a couple of cues...

My my...if those percentage applied to John's 30,000 cases that's be ridiculous...John must have better robots building them cases at higher precision than those silly car manufacturers...

 

[JB Cases]

http://www.statisticbrain.com/automobile-recall-statistics/

Check this out. On average automobile manufacturers had more than 10% recalls...some even 30%...hmmm...these are the products that the entire family get into I'd say the "contents" would be worth more than a couple of cues...

My my...if those percentage applied to John's 30,000 cases that's be ridiculous...John must have better robots building them cases at higher precision than those silly car manufacturers...

Thanks. Now I really regret my decision not to become a stripper.

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Number of strip clubs in the US 4,000
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