Harder than it looks. The following quote was taken from a billiard forum where there is an ongoing saga about a new case maker who offered his cases at a very low price and subsequently ended up with more orders than he could handle. “….. Mine was starting to fall apart and the pockets seem to “deflate”. That was of course after waiting 12 weeks to get my case. …….. Only to have it stolen out of my car with my cues. Whoever stole the case, thank you. But I would like my cues and my stereo back. “ The thing is that new case makers often don’t pay attention to the stress points and the usage. What feels strong now can prove to be a real weak point after a few months of use. Leather that stands up now can sag later in moist conditions. Newbies don’t have the experience yet to know all these things. They just think that rivets are the answer to everything. They don’t know that you need to take special care with all the areas of a case and do special things to insure that it does not start falling apart. Cue cases get slung, they get dropped on the floor, they get leaned on and sat on, they get dragged, they get thrown, they get rained on. And the weight distribution is different than most other cases. So all the handles, stress points, bottoms and caps need to be reinforced. Interiors need to be melded with exteriors in such a way that nothing moves. I have spent half my life, literally, refining the process to make damn sure our cases stay together. Sometimes things go wrong like snaps that fail or latches that break but for the most part our cases function just as they should for years and years and years. I am proud, very proud to say that there are thousands and thousands of Instroke cases out there that are 10-15 years old and are functioning and protecting the cues as good as the first day they came off the production line. And that’s what you get when you go with a proven case maker who has earned their stripes the hard way. Back in the day 18 years ago now, when I first started building cases I charged a good amount for my cases. $400 and up for vinyl cases at a time when leather cases weren’t even that much. Why did I charge that much? Well I felt that my time was worth it AND if something went wrong then I wanted a little buffer to be able to provide top notch service. There is a saying that goes like this, ‘if you can’t afford the time to do it right the first time where are you going to find the time to do it right the second time?’ So if you charge too little for your work and you end up facing a lot of it then the tendency is to try to get through it quickly which of course leads to sloppy work that often has to be done again. Just like in pool when the professionals play so great that the inexperienced viewer comments that anyone could play good if they never had a hard shot, building a great cue case that stands the use and abuse it’s going to endure is much harder than it looks. I think all the new case makers are well meaning and I hope that they love the craft enough to stick with it. I am seeing some really good imaginative elements coming out that will push the established makers like myself to keep innovating. I just would advise them to tighten up on their fit and finish and to charge what they need to for the time it takes to build it right. Otherwise they will be out of business before they really get started.
Posted on: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 06:57:14 +0000
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