HarryBillingham
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Hello Board!
I hope you do not mind me joining your forum and interjecting with some information.
We have been contacted by members here and also by other customers who had similar concerns.
Yes, we have changed the interior materials of some of our products. This is most apparent on the Hadley series.
Why? Simply: improvement. The insert is now a better product, we feel. Bear with me while I explain....
The removable interior of the Hadley Pro (and Small, Large, and Large Pro) was made from an outer fabric (100% Polyester) an interior foam and the soft green material inside as a lining.
This green material is very good at receiving hook & loop fasteners. However, there are many downsides to it and since we introduced it, we have received a lot of criticism and requests to change it.
Far and away the biggest problem with the material is that it will begin to 'pill' relatively quickly. Small fibres start to pull away when the hook & loop tape is pulled off it. Eventually, the product becomes useless and the dividers will not attach to the material at all. Failure of this requires a replacement interior. And it will require another replacement further down the line.
The fluffy green material is made from a brushed nylon (the outer face you can see), it is bonded by heat to a polyester backing that has a woven sheet on the back. The woven part of it allows us to stitch through the material without the thread pulling through the brushed nylon face.
Although it feels nice and soft and cosy on your hands, it doesn't offer any protection to your camera equipment at all. The hard, closed cell foam inside is where the protection comes from. Soft padding just moves out of the way, decompresses and offers no support. If cameras were lighter then softer padding would work. The intended function of this material is not as a bag lining and it's feature set does not [EDIT: .... lend itself perfectly to this job.]
The foam padding is not thinner in any way. We use a standard type of foam across all of our products and this has not changed.
The interior is now made from the same material as the outer (we're still just discussing the padding interior and not the outer canvas material of the bag). Cost per metre is greater than the previous material and with the addition of more hook & loop fastening tape, the cost has been increased to give greater longevity and a more reliable product. The method used to cut out the foam panels in our factory has also been changed and is now a lot quicker and more accurate. The foam is now purchased in a different format and the work/process area has been modified to allow better, quicker and more accurate cutting of patterns. So the improvement is only partially customer-facing.
We only use Velcro branded hook & loop fastener tape in our products and this ensures both halves have a long life of repeatable operation.
I can totally understand the opinions that you have; they are all valid. I hope to assure you that this change was a genuine attempt to make a better longer lasting product and not scrape a few pennies out of the costing.
I'm here and logged in, so if there are any questions you may have, feel free to ask and I'll reply as quickly as I can!
Many thanks for all of your support. As a family we are always flattered that our products create such enthusiasm and receive so much passion from users and admirers; we can't thank you enough.
Kindest regards,
Harry Billingham.
I hope you do not mind me joining your forum and interjecting with some information.
We have been contacted by members here and also by other customers who had similar concerns.
Yes, we have changed the interior materials of some of our products. This is most apparent on the Hadley series.
Why? Simply: improvement. The insert is now a better product, we feel. Bear with me while I explain....
The removable interior of the Hadley Pro (and Small, Large, and Large Pro) was made from an outer fabric (100% Polyester) an interior foam and the soft green material inside as a lining.
This green material is very good at receiving hook & loop fasteners. However, there are many downsides to it and since we introduced it, we have received a lot of criticism and requests to change it.
Far and away the biggest problem with the material is that it will begin to 'pill' relatively quickly. Small fibres start to pull away when the hook & loop tape is pulled off it. Eventually, the product becomes useless and the dividers will not attach to the material at all. Failure of this requires a replacement interior. And it will require another replacement further down the line.
The fluffy green material is made from a brushed nylon (the outer face you can see), it is bonded by heat to a polyester backing that has a woven sheet on the back. The woven part of it allows us to stitch through the material without the thread pulling through the brushed nylon face.
Although it feels nice and soft and cosy on your hands, it doesn't offer any protection to your camera equipment at all. The hard, closed cell foam inside is where the protection comes from. Soft padding just moves out of the way, decompresses and offers no support. If cameras were lighter then softer padding would work. The intended function of this material is not as a bag lining and it's feature set does not [EDIT: .... lend itself perfectly to this job.]
The foam padding is not thinner in any way. We use a standard type of foam across all of our products and this has not changed.
The interior is now made from the same material as the outer (we're still just discussing the padding interior and not the outer canvas material of the bag). Cost per metre is greater than the previous material and with the addition of more hook & loop fastening tape, the cost has been increased to give greater longevity and a more reliable product. The method used to cut out the foam panels in our factory has also been changed and is now a lot quicker and more accurate. The foam is now purchased in a different format and the work/process area has been modified to allow better, quicker and more accurate cutting of patterns. So the improvement is only partially customer-facing.
We only use Velcro branded hook & loop fastener tape in our products and this ensures both halves have a long life of repeatable operation.
I can totally understand the opinions that you have; they are all valid. I hope to assure you that this change was a genuine attempt to make a better longer lasting product and not scrape a few pennies out of the costing.
I'm here and logged in, so if there are any questions you may have, feel free to ask and I'll reply as quickly as I can!
Many thanks for all of your support. As a family we are always flattered that our products create such enthusiasm and receive so much passion from users and admirers; we can't thank you enough.
Kindest regards,
Harry Billingham.
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