At Bel-Air Cases, we are all about customization. Our padded equipment cases can feature a wide variety of locks, latches, feet and handles, as well as molded-in logos, custom decals and much more. But we don’t just customize the exterior of your cases; we also pay special attention to the interior.
Our cases are built to handle the rigors of transport, and while the exterior of your case will absorb the impact and vibrations associated with travel, the custom foam interiors also further absorb the bumps and jostles typical when cases are moving along conveyor belts, tossed into airplanes or bouncing along an interstate in the back of a delivery truck.
Our Custom Foam Interiors
There are many ways that foam can be fabricated, for instance, you can use CNC machining to create custom foam or you can use waterjet fabrication or hot wire fabrication. The type of process that is used depends largely on the end use and the materials that are being used.
For our padded equipment cases, we typically use die-cutting and hand-cutting to craft your foam interiors. Creating a fully custom interior might include creating fabricated interior walls, plastic dividers, interior doors, windows, panel mounts or shock mounts, whatever you need to fully protect and/or display your products.
Our carrying cases often are used as sales kits, for product samples or as OEM cases, and for these types of cases, a custom foam interior might be as crucial as a custom exterior. You truly need a custom interior that shows off your products to their best advantage.
Of course, not every cases needs a fully custom interior with multiple cavities or sections, so we can provide you with a quality foam liner or perhaps layers of quality foam if that’s what you need. It’s all about choice.
What We Won’t Do
While we are happy to customize every inch of your padded equipment cases from the inside out, what we refuse to do is simply hand off a custom case with a chunk of diced foam inside it.
This cheap “pick and pluck” foam is a problem to us on several levels. For one thing, you are paying a premium for a custom case; shouldn’t the interior also be customized? We certainly believe that it should. Typically, we can construct custom foam sets for around the same price that you would expect to pay for a case filled with diced foam.
In addition, with diced foam, the customer is expected to cut and pick away at the foam in order to make cavities. Most of our customers don’t have the complicated die cutting machinery that would be needed in order to create custom cavities, so the end result isn’t exactly attractive or even perfectly designed to protect every inch of your product.
We also object to the idea that the customer pays for a huge chunk of foam and then, after cutting away at it to make cavities, they have to throw half or more of the remaining foam away. Why should customers be forced to pay for foam they aren’t even using? We believe you should only have to pay for the foam that you actually use, which is another reason why we provide custom foam interiors.
Finally, when a company passes off a cheap chunk of diced foam to a customer, this says quite a bit about the level of quality in generally. This foam not only has a less desirable appearance, it also tends to break down quickly and is not as protective in general. If any company tries to sell you a “custom” case but doesn’t also offer to create a custom foam interior, this is a bad sign.
Whether you select Bel-Air Cases or another company, we highly recommend that you select a company with many years of experience (we’ve been here for 50+ years!) that provides you with custom padded equipment cases with a custom foam interior.
Your Case Options
We can design a case for just about any type of equipment and to just about any specification you might need. If you need something that can truly handle transport and rugged environments, our heavy-duty carrying cases and our heavy-duty shipping cases are the perfect options. These cases meet ATA standards and many MIL specs, as well.
In fact, we’ve designed rugged cases for military clients as well as aerospace clients, two groups that truly need cases that can handle just about anything. Our cases can handle impacts and temperature extremes, as well as keeping out moisture and repelling water and various chemicals which might come into contact with your case.
If you want lightweight padded equipment cases that won’t be used as luggage, our light-duty carrying cases are ideal. These are perfect for those aforementioned sales kits as well as OEM cases. If you need a bit more durability, the medium-duty carrying cases can be transported occasionally as luggage.
We also design custom expo cases that are perfect for those oddly-sized items and graphics you need to transport to various trade shows and conferences. These are built to handle the rigors of transport, and we can add wheels and telescoping handles to make it easier to move the expo cases from place to place. Actually, we can add wheels and various handles to all of our cases, to make it as easy as possible for you to carry or move your case through a crowded airport, through a bustling market in Istanbul or perhaps along an uneven path deep in the jungles of Cambodia.
Each Bel-Air Case is designed around whatever will be placed inside, offering you the ultimate level of protection. If you need any type of padded equipment cases, give us a call at any time and we’ll start working on your custom case project.