Calder Guitar Case Story Ch 16 New Gig Bag
Summer 05
Here's the latest on the gig bag. Two weeks ago I took the train North to Accrington to spend the afternoon with Dave Taylor. Dave owns Stirling Mouldings a great company combining thermoforming and stitching processes (web site redeveloping so don't look for it). Stirling are at the cutting edge of body protection for football and rugby players - they know a ton about impact resistance and shock absorbtion.
Dave had made us a first prototype using closed cell foam Alveon and semi-rigid plastic. The closed cell gives way more protection than the open cell used in most other gig bags. The chassis (which in the production version will be CURV) gives extra support to the neck and base of a guitar.
The 5 hour train trip was so that I could discuss next steps.
Before Stirling Mouldings Dave was product designer for rucsac makers Karrimor. A man who cuts to chase and likes to work with his hands...within a couple of hours he moved from marking up masking tape stuck on the prototype to making a new handle. Great to watch - here are the shots
A week later Dave shipped this model to me (made of wood - seriously heavy) showing the general contours of the thermoformed bag. Not right - but I liked the way it was going.
From above you can see the streamlined look we're working on - cool and very strong.
To get the details of the design right I asked designer Michael Mailling to come over and he got down to it - smoothing out the contours of bag and reworking the external pocket and handle design.
Here's the final drawing he send to Dave (the handle needs more work - something more skeletal).
Next Dave will commission a light aluminium tool be cast from the revised model. When that's ready he can make some production prototypes. This should happen next week...
category: early development
Calder blog homepage
Calder website homepage
Here's the latest on the gig bag. Two weeks ago I took the train North to Accrington to spend the afternoon with Dave Taylor. Dave owns Stirling Mouldings a great company combining thermoforming and stitching processes (web site redeveloping so don't look for it). Stirling are at the cutting edge of body protection for football and rugby players - they know a ton about impact resistance and shock absorbtion.
Dave had made us a first prototype using closed cell foam Alveon and semi-rigid plastic. The closed cell gives way more protection than the open cell used in most other gig bags. The chassis (which in the production version will be CURV) gives extra support to the neck and base of a guitar.
The 5 hour train trip was so that I could discuss next steps.
Before Stirling Mouldings Dave was product designer for rucsac makers Karrimor. A man who cuts to chase and likes to work with his hands...within a couple of hours he moved from marking up masking tape stuck on the prototype to making a new handle. Great to watch - here are the shots
A week later Dave shipped this model to me (made of wood - seriously heavy) showing the general contours of the thermoformed bag. Not right - but I liked the way it was going.
From above you can see the streamlined look we're working on - cool and very strong.
To get the details of the design right I asked designer Michael Mailling to come over and he got down to it - smoothing out the contours of bag and reworking the external pocket and handle design.
Here's the final drawing he send to Dave (the handle needs more work - something more skeletal).
Next Dave will commission a light aluminium tool be cast from the revised model. When that's ready he can make some production prototypes. This should happen next week...
category: early development
Calder blog homepage
Calder website homepage
posted by Nick CC at
10:30 PM
8 Comments:
hey, i really really like the site, and the bag looks great, but most importantly it sounds to be sturdy. do you have any idea how much the end cost will be for one gig bag and one hardcase?
Thanks for the appreciation - gives me energy. Sturdy is the right word - our whole purpose is to make bags and cases that are really fit for purpose - guitar protection.
My target price for the gig bag is around $220 - just a bit more than the Incase Tour Bag.
The hard case I hope to sell at about $550 around the same price as a Calton.
Bag looks absolutely steller, especially compared to most of the "junk" that is available today. When you take into accountthe prices of todays instruments, I would never have thought about the convenience of a bag due to the lousy protection they offer, however it looks like that will soon change! great idea and very cutting edge design! 2 Thumbs up!
Thanks Anon - I like the 'stellar' tag. Take a look at my recent post on the Ultra gig bag would be interested to know your reaction. The page is here
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Over the next few years chassis development in the junior formulas will be fascinating. The success of Ligier and Mygale in F3 is forcing the tectonic plates of the single-chassis formula apart, and surely it can only be a matter of time before other marques attempt to enter cars into GP2 or WSR.
The bag looks great.
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