After you've created something a bit new and realized that folks more than a mile away are wanting it, the image of putting your product in a box becomes something more than a passing thought. If your creation is not an easy three dimensional shape, and if it is fragile in the slightest, the ante is upped.
Enter Rick Wilcox and Columbia Corrugated Box of Portland. Once again it's Prototype Time: Try, fail, learn. The CCB pros created the bespoke box you see here. The stand, boxed, fits in it too. The key part is the die cut foam insert into which the bass snuggles like a puppy into the new afghan folded at the end of the sofa. Everything is padded on the top by the eggcrate foam and the gig bag. Barker Basses have arrived safely in places as far flung (from Oregon, USA) as Germany, Mexico, England and Venezuela.
Enter Mark DeHart of Rock Hard Road Cases which is conveniently located in Albany, Oregon. Mark designed the blue beauty you see in the images, using the tried and true foam insert. If you're touring, by surface or by air, it's the one for hard duty.
In between these two lands the case shown in tandem with the shipping box: A lightweight but still protective version that's easier to handle than the CCB box. It's shopmade here, and is usable without wheels and an end handle, and actually smaller in dimension than the box.
It's people like Rick and Mark that enable a small company like this one to be on the map.
And that's coming from the Barker Musical Instruments Shipping Department Manager. Who also is the CEO. And the Janitor. Photographer. And, periodically, the Blogger.
No comments:
Post a Comment