Yes and those cases were known for bad hardware selection, snapping latches, failing zippers and the bottoms breaking / coming out. Just overall sloppy design and execution.
JV
All true. But since Instroke has endured for going on 22 years now they have fixed all the early issues.
For example, this latch is exclusive to Instroke, developed by them and is the strongest of it's type on the market.
I really apologize to the entire world for my bad execution and design. I was young and dumb and thought I was building something strong and durable enough to last forever. And in fact many people were able to use those early cases for more than a decade with no problems. And any broken cases were taken care of and the customers were made whole and happy.
But we did strengthen the case and the result was a much better product. Now Instroke cases are a staple product for many retailers. Solid and good at a super price for what is delivered. I am very proud that my brand has endured long after I was done with it.
With well over 30,000 cases sold Instroke has definitely earned a solid place in the market.
All the lessons I learned in creating Instroke have now been applied to the cases I make now. Experience really is a hard teacher. I probably go overboard now reinforcing the stress points and the bottoms and the zippers but it's worth it. Still, even with all those precautions once in a while something fails and when that happens we deal with it and fix it somehow and eventually. Still working on the timeliness but I expect that will be resolved once I am out of the loop.
As an example, this ring is reinforced with rivets and a sewn tab over the rivets.
For this latch I eliminated all the moving parts, it's a lot more work to build it but the end result is practically unbreakable. And it also allows me to make it fit the design of the case as we did on the Portugal case.
The bottoms are now SUPER STRONG - with the wood attached directly to the tubing inside and featuring a rubber bottom to absorb the shock of the case being dropped on the floor. Just like tiny taps can move a dresser tiny shocks can destroy the bottom of a case. We have eliminated that now.
Even on the cheaper Basic Rugged cases we have the same rubber bottoms but I invented a way to do them faster to keep the cost and retail price down.
Here is a YouTube video showing those details.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqcad583Rf0&feature=player_embedded
So anyway, yeah, you're absolutely right, the design I did at 22 years old wasn't the best. I had a lot to learn and by the time I was 25 I had fixed most of it but was still on a path to learn a lot more. That's part of the reason I study other cases and containers of all types. Being self-taught I have to pick up what I can and work on it in my own way. I think that has led me to develop a lot of techniques that are far stronger than what my colleagues do. At least my customers are very happy with our work and that's really what counts in the end as far as I am concerned.
