…. I have had many leather cases over the years – I can’t even remember them all – and was never really happy with any of them except for a little 1×2 case made by Marc Turcasso. Yeah, I’m pretty picky. But I recently received a 3×4 case John built to my specs – lots of design freedom with John – and I am extremely happy with it in all respects. It’s a relief to finally have my “lifetime case” to go along with my 28 year old “lifetime cue”. To those who think “built in China” means lower quality, I have no comment except to say that it’s not true with JB Cases.

Rich Klein

I really need to look up where the whole on the wagon/off the wagon thing comes from when talking about addiction.  Ok well I did – thanks Ask Yahoo – here is the origin.  Now I fell off the wagon concerning my aforementioned obsessive behavior with the AZB forum.  Seems I am still popular there with not one but TWO threads about me going in the main forum.  It's gratifying to see that I seem to have a lot of people who want to see me go back.  And the usual antagonists posted up their usual drivel.  And I spent way too much time today checking those threads.

This time though I didn't rise to the bait – well not really but sort of.  I did use Karen's account to clear up a few misconceptions in private to the people who posted them.  And I called a few folks to clear the air which really felt good.

I don't plan to go back to posting on AZB.  Right now we are getting more cases done than ever.  I think I have responded to more emails this month and especially this week than I have all year.  Being committed to being "right" is a major time and energy drain.  It's actually a lot more fun to just get stuff done and feel relieved and peaceful instead of the getting the short adrenaline boost from telling someone off.

I am glad to know that some folks are reading the blog though even if they don't comprehend what they read and manage to take it out of context.  But for those folks I hope that they notice that comments are open on my blog now so they can say their piece to me if they disagree with something I write here.

Well I don't know if it's better to be infamous or famous but I will take my combined 14 pages of attention on AZ and enjoy it.  To those of you who like me – you rock!  To those of you who don't, suck it up.

When my "ban" is over I won't be back.  Karen will be there though and she can reach me if there is something that needs my attention.  Meanwhile AZ Billiards is a great place to be for billiards info if you can avoid the mini-trolls.  So don't hesitate to visit if you want to talk pool.

Oh and before I forget a big shout out to Justin at TAR.  They have a big PPV coming up that everyone should go an see.  With all the free promotion he is giving me and Karen I thought I would return the favor.  www.theactionreport.com

 

Kevin King is an insanely talented leather worker from Missouri.  http://www.choppersaddles.com/

He recently built a case to offer as a prize in a memorial 9-ball tournament to raise awareness for Lou Gehrig's Disease or ALS.

The following is taken from Kevin's post on www.leatherworker.net  - go here to see the rest of it Kevin King Cue Case 

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"As some of you already know, on October 28th, 2009, My dad died as a result of ALS (Lou Gerhigs Disease).

It is quite possibly the worst disease I have ever seen. Ever.

If you are unaware of what ALS is, I encourage you to look it up. I'll spare the details on this post.

Since my dad was diagnosed with this disease, my sister has been very active in ALS awareness. Much more than me. It's still hard for me to think about.

Anyway, she organized and hosted a 9-ball pool tournament to benefit The ALS group and help raise awareness.

 This was one of the prizes." – Kevin King

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Thanks for sharing this Kevin.  I am sorry to hear about your Dad.  Please don't take up cue case making full time because I can't build chopper seats to make up for the income I will lose when all my customers head your way.

An age old design principle is Form Follows Function.  In other words when making something that is intended to be useful you should try to get the function right before designing the look of it.

Now of course some designers go for the "art" more than the function and that's all right as long as the consumer knows what they are getting.  It's quite obvious that a Porsche Design toaster isn't as functional as a ToastMaster but the ToastMaster can toast ANYTHING perfectly.  The Porsche Design one just LOOKS way more expensive (and is).

 

But what about when a company has a reputation for building products dedicated to function?  Wouldn't you expect anything that they turn out to follow the basic rule?

Predator has become a famous name in the billiard world.  They are everywhere, they sponsor everything, they are master marketers who manage to get their name on everyone and everything.  They revolutionized the pool world with their spliced shafts effectively creating another segment of the industry all by themselves.

And the shafts work as advertised – for the most part.  Of course SOME of the points are kind of marketingspeak for which no hard data to prove their claims has ever been shown.  But their shafts have indeed sparked a host of competitors and forced cue makers across the board to rethink the way they build cues.

So when this company brings out a case wouldn't you think it would be the ultimate in performance?  More efficient, lighter, stronger, more useful, most importantly more protective?

I would expect nothing less.  But the cases that they brought out a few years ago are complete opposites of that.  They are overbuilt monstrosities which are too big, too heavy, have weak closures which break easily, are not very protective and not very useful.

Harsh words.  Especially coming from the man who designed the first generation of Predator cases.  Am I bitter?  Not at all.  Right now my designs for mass production are the exclusive domain of Sterling Gaming.  At the moment Sterling and Predator don't get along too well and that can change.  It's entirely possible that I get the chance to design a new line for Predator at some point.

I understand how they ended up with what they have right now.  Someone at Predator drew up some cool looking designs and they shipped those designs off to the Long Chan factory and Long Chan had zero clue how to make those designs into real products in the correct way so they just kept layering material until they ended up with something that resembled the pictures they were sent.

And Predator, having no other choice and being already committed to a new line of cases (it was time as well) went forward with a product that is really not up to their standards.  To be fair the designs are appealing, they look pretty cool but the resulting product is crappy.  Now that's harsh I know, but it's the truth.  The sad part is that due to Predator's successful marketing now their new cases are also becoming some of the most copied, both as counterfeits and knockoffs of the general design.

Well anyway as it happens the other day I was out playing and I happened to put my case next to a Predator Blak 2×4.  At first I didn't notice the disparity but then after a shot I was standing next to the cases and I could see how much bigger the Predator 2×4 is than my JB Case 3×6.  It's taller (but does not handle more length), and bigger but does not have as much capacity.
 And it's WAY heavier. 

Here is a video comparing the two that I shot that day,