Whoa is Me!

Ok so as some of you know I build tackle boxes for Muskie Fishing, I love to Fish! For the longest time I was like every other guy here in the Midwest, when I got a chance I was on a Farm Pond stalking Large Mouth Bass! Not that long ago I went fishing over 200 days straight!I got up a little early and went to my favorite Pond and wetted a line for at least an hour or so.
   Wisconsin was where I was introduced to the Esox Genius, Family vacations up in Hayward was something I looked forward to about a week after we got back! I will never forget my brother catching a 36" Pike on a yellow and black beetle spin just down from our cabin. I will also never forget my Buddy Jim and I down in Muskie Bay on Lac Corte Oreilles (/ləˈkuːdəreɪ/) the very last day of vacation catching small Northern that literally went airborne for about 2hrs. I know, I know, a whole lt of talk about Pike and even Muskie Bay but no Muskie fishing!
   I was truly introduced to Muskie one Fall whilst on Vacation again, on Cuda Ray, when a guy staying in a cabin just down from us landed a 40" Muskie off Winters Point. I had never seen anything quite like it, nor smelled anything quite like it! Well of course 2 things entered my mind. Holy crap I have been swimming and these big Muckraker's are in there! The second thought was I gotta catch me one of those!
   Enter my Friend and business partner (and former High School Teacher, Coach, Mayor...the list goes on) Bill! Come to find out his cabin was just off the lake we vacationed on all these years. Well to sum it up that next year due to the blizzard that made us leave vacation early last year the Fam decided not to go the following year, so I went to my 1st Muskie Tournament with Bill and Have been going almost every year now (Bill has been fishing it for over 35yrs). I tell you all of this to show that I do love Fishing! Everything about it Like some people it took me 10yrs to finally catch a brag worthy slob of 48.25" in Indiana (I have never been to Vermillion or St Claire so give me a break).
  So you should understand when I tell you how Disgusted I am that I can count how many times I have been fishing in the last 3yrs on 1 hand! That's right I am around Muskie Tackle almost everyday, Building the Boxes that some of you love, watching Facebook post's of Hulbert and Miller and every other dude hauling in hawgs! But I digress...I still love this sport! Ponds or lakes, Bass or Muskie it keeps me going when life gets me down and it has tried hard to get me down this last year!   The only thing my Cool Cordwood Esox Box does is display the tools of my somewhat distant past time......but I have faith!

NEW store features

Ok so we launched a new online store a little bit ago. The new store has some cool features now. One of the important ones is that when filling out an account you can choose the "Account Type", this will allow you to choose your club or organization (if you have had one setup). If you do not have an arrangement with us simply have an officer contact us and we can work out a deal!

A couple of other new features now on our store is Gift Registry, so you can set this up easy and let people know what you REALLY want! Along with this is an "Email Friend" button on every product. See something we have that your bud may like? Click it and send him a link with an image!

We also have a mailing list (which currently only I am subscribed to....let's change that! The only time emails are sent is maybe once a month and any significant change to the product or price!

Overall the new store is cleaner and easier to navigate, we hope you like it!

Well there are some changes as of late. First and foremost was the Logo Plates. If you follow us on Facebook at all you have seen this, if not check out the page or visit the store to see.

Speaking of store we are revamping the entire store! More options, Better Members Area, hell a completely different store all together. Stay tuned for more info!

Cordwood Update

Well, Team Cordwood has been pretty quiet for some time now. To answer a few questions, Yes we are still here. No we have not given up nor was that ever the issue. No we do not do Trade Shows. Trade shows are just too expensive and take a ton of work, just talk to anyone that does them. We would much rather spend that money on research and development.
   So why the absence? Well between health issues, Personal difficulties and honestly bad timing which is something we all have dealt with simply forced a hiatus. We are definitely getting back into the groove and are making improvements. Some of our Friends & clients have keep in touch and to those few we thank you. For everyone else never fear, things are getting back to normal. We will ramp up our Facebook posts and activity very soon.
   One thing I can tell you is we have a new Design feature coming out. It will be revealed soon and while purely an aesthetic change this small thing will help us deliver in a much more timely matter. There have been a few issues with us getting orders out and I can tell you no one here is happy about it, thus the change! So if you have an order that has not been fulfilled know we are working hard to finish, nothing else matters at this time to us other than getting orders fulfilled.

   So again thank you to everyone for hanging in there with us. You wont regret it!

Hydro Dipped Lids...coming soon to a body of water near you!!

So again we are trying to improve our product! Many of you have seen our blog post about a new lid design, if not you can check it out here. Well we stumbled across something in our own backyard. A buddy of mine I have known for years has been talking about hydro dipping for awhile now and he now has the stuff!
  Naturally my first thought is how can I use this for our tackle boxes....lol. Well how bout Carbon Fiber Lids, Hydro-dipped carbon fiber that is. So we took a couple of pieces of our materials to him a couple of days ago and some interesting things have come to light! Not only does it stick to Polycarbonate, but it sticks well without much prep. Not only that but we are playing around with a different material as well just for the lids and it's first test dip was earlier today....and it was successful! so I am stoked. We will be doing some further testing but should have a prototype very soon if all goes well.
  So what does this mean to our customers? Well for those that want lids it means it will come standard as a carbon fiber looking lid, clear coat and all. Plus we will offer a ton of choices besides that print as well. While we still are working out costs and feasibilities I am confident that it is doable. Check out some of the patterns.....

Now there are about 250 in total that they currently have so the possibilities are vast!

Also we are going to play with maybe dipping the  bottom 4 inches or so of a box or PFS with like camo.....on the poly it is still translucent! Should be very cool so stay tuned!

Check out Deep See Customs on Facebook®

***UPDATE***

We are continuing to work with Deep See Customs and are getting some promising results. A lid is being made as we speak to go to them for what could be the final prototype. Keep your fingers crossed as this will you, our clients, more than 200 choices of patterns for your lid.....this is so cool!!

***UPDATE***
I still have not given up on this, I will have a dipped lid to show soon. Deep See Customs have been working on alot of things and refining the process.

New Lids

So we are always trying to improve what we are doing and most of which is behind the scenes with jigs and material to speed up the process. The latest mission is to take a material typically used for outdoor signs and make a lid out of it!
 So the material is Polyethylene sandwiched between two thin layers of aluminum. It's lightweight and strong and comes in so many different colors that it will blow your mind....even wood grain (depending on availability from manf of course).
  Right now we have a bending jig made that makes a killer clean bend. Our challenge is to find the right sealer and the cut of the corners to make it as clean as possible but we are close!

Some of the colors are:

 

   If this performs like we think it will it may even be possible to etch on it which will essentially remove the paint and expose the Aluminum below...should be a cool look, if not we have a weatherproof Team Cordwood Decal that looks killer! Stay Tuned!

UPDATE!!!
Ok so we finally had some samples etched and man are they gonna be cool! Here are a couple pics I just took of what we tried!

 

04/27/2015

The final product!!! We are opting for the single pass laser etch, gives it a golden hue.

***UPDATE***

\Due to the cost f this product being volatile we have discontinued the use of it. While this may be a temporary issue the bottom line is keeping costs down. As it is labor intensive we have chosen to go a different route and pass the savings on to you.