Locking Strip Shortage?

[IntegrityShirts]

using strapping for locking strips..

I have a good jewish friend who would even call this a really cheap

Heck ya! At $10 per frame for clear strip times 40 frames, I think it's the smartest solution out there. And now I have a plastic bird nest to cut strips from!

[Gilligan]

using strapping for locking strips..

I have a good jewish friend who would even call this a really cheap

Are you suggesting it is a bad/cheap idea or are you suggesting it is a good idea?

Because the fact is, that is all newman locking strips are... re-purposed strapping material.  Don Newman is a genius if for nothing else but by buying a 1000' spool for $50 bucks and selling 50' "rolls" for $70 bucks!  Even if he sells the 50 foot roll for $50 bucks (to dealers)... he's making 20x markup!  He takes that $50 bucks and makes a $1000 from it!  That's a hell of ROI!

[jsheridan]

using strapping for locking strips..

I have a good jewish friend who would even call this a really cheap

Are you suggesting it is a bad/cheap idea or are you suggesting it is a good idea?

Because the fact is, that is all newman locking strips are... re-purposed strapping material.  Don Newman is a genius if for nothing else but by buying a 1000' spool for $50 bucks and selling 50' "rolls" for $70 bucks!  Even if he sells the 50 foot roll for $50 bucks (to dealers)... he's making 20x markup!  He takes that $50 bucks and makes a $1000 from it!  That's a hell of ROI!

It's a bad idea..

It's NOT re-purposed strapping.. it's a specifically engineered product with extremely high manufacturing tolerances and made from a special material to fend off the forces that are applied to it. If you have some real lock strip around, take your fingernail and find the groove along the edge, that my friends is the science behind the locking strip and why it will hold mesh at very high tension levels.

the crap people come up with sometimes to save a buck in this business never surprises me.

[sweetts]

using strapping for locking strips..

I have a good jewish friend who would even call this a really cheap

Are you suggesting it is a bad/cheap idea or are you suggesting it is a good idea?

Because the fact is, that is all newman locking strips are... re-purposed strapping material.  Don Newman is a genius if for nothing else but by buying a 1000' spool for $50 bucks and selling 50' "rolls" for $70 bucks!  Even if he sells the 50 foot roll for $50 bucks (to dealers)... he's making 20x markup!  He takes that $50 bucks and makes a $1000 from it!  That's a hell of ROI!

It's a bad idea..

It's NOT re-purposed strapping.. it's a specifically engineered product with extremely high manufacturing tolerances and made from a special material to fend off the forces that are applied to it. If you have some real lock strip around, take your fingernail and find the groove along the edge, that my friends is the science behind the locking strip and why it will hold mesh at very high tension levels.

the crap people come up with sometimes to save a buck in this business never surprises me.

I would think if you can get the same results on the cheap you would be a fool not to if it is cost affective all things considered why not.

Sent  from samsung gem(the worst smart phone ever)

[Gilligan]

LOL... that's more rich than Don Newman.

I have both sitting right here on my desk.  I'm quite certain that the forces and the way they are exerted on locking strips are NOTHING compared to the forces that are put on strapping material.

You must have some vested interest in keeping this "secret" a secret because you must see how foolish it is to try and hold fast to this theory.

There is more factual substance in the "shoes" thread than what you are saying.

[IntegrityShirts]

It's a bad idea..

It's NOT re-purposed strapping.. it's a specifically engineered product with extremely high manufacturing tolerances and made from a special material to fend off the forces that are applied to it. If you have some real lock strip around, take your fingernail and find the groove along the edge, that my friends is the science behind the locking strip and why it will hold mesh at very high tension levels.

the crap people come up with sometimes to save a buck in this business never surprises me.

What if I called it an industrial grade polypropylene plastic that is chemically resistant with a break strength of 600lbs?  I could put it on a fancy roll with a snazzy label and call it "Elite Double Locking Strip".  Still crap, eh? 

[Gilligan]

Integrity, you'd also need to have someone reroll it and stamp it "newman" in the process.

I have no doubt that he "specials orders it"... but the only thing special about his order is the branding that gets stamped on it.

Like ordering blank shirts with custom tags put in them... that means they are WAY better than the ones without the custom tags right?

[alan802]

I've got several different types of newman strips here on my desk and only one of them has the little grooves on the outer edge.  I don't doubt that structurally they are probably different other than the grooves and I will keep an eye on the screens that I stretch with the non-newman strips.  One of these strips came out of a brand new newman roller frame that I got out of a box, it doesn't have grooves and the others came out of used frames but only one of them has the grooves.

[Gilligan]

I was pretty heavy into Disc Golf (Frisbee Golf) and there were two main manufactures of discs.  One of them stop carrying a certain disc in a certain weight class.  This was my wife's favorite discs.  Well, I knew one of the Team Pros so I spoke with him about it because it seemed like a really stupid move as the disc was rather popular.  He said that he also raised the same concerns and was told that they have no control over the supply of plastic pellets they use to make their discs and that basically they were not able to get any of the plastic like that in the light enough weight any longer to make that discs that same way.  I have one of the last that were made and it is SUPER thin (to make it so light).

Point?  That when you aren't a big enough player, you don't get to make the calls on your "raw" product that you are using and you just have to use what you can get.  I'm guessing the ones with the grooves weren't/aren't available any more or at the time.  I'd bet they are standard strapping for some particular application though, for a much larger client.

[jsheridan]

Being as I'm a little more in with Newman than ya'll..

I can tell you for a fact it's not strapping material, it's specially manufactured at a single facility for the sole purpose of it's intended use. It's up to you to believe me or not, I for one know the difference.

[IntegrityShirts]

Being as I'm a little more in with Newman than ya'll..

I can tell you for a fact it's not strapping material, it's specially manufactured at a single facility for the sole purpose of it's intended use. It's up to you to believe me or not, I for one know the difference.

I never said Newman strips were actually strapping and  in turn you didn't say that strapping wouldn't work. So I guess its that you're calling it crap and cheap because the real stuff is engineered specifically for the frames.

I hope you don't believe the mesh clips are "engineered" too and aren't re-purposed fuse holder clips!

[ZooCity]

Well don't forget that Don spends time making sure his products hold up to screen reclaim chemistry.  Is the strapping material going to be resistant or is it going to get soft and maybe fail, taking many times it's cost in mesh with it?  I think we're paying for that security when we buy the newman 'strapping' so to speak.  Then again chem's in our industry have likely gotten milder in the last twenty years so maybe thats not the concern it once was.

Newman products are also designed for ultra high tension.  Ironically so, since so few go this route, but my point is that all the variables get multiplied exponentially when you make that jump from mid thirties to sixty+ n/cm.  So it might be that newman sells 'strapping' that can handle this and ensures it's consistent.  I'm sure that costs more than common strapping if thats the case.

Just wanted to play devils advocate here. 

[ScreenFoo]

I've stretched a couple M3's with doubled up .015 strapping tape and ranged 40-50N with them.  I have a 1-B meter, stretch manually, and use mesh I don't have to take out a loan to buy, so I rarely do 60+N/cm anyway.  They held up just like any other screen I've done with proper strips. 

I can only assume two pieces does something similar to what the groove does--but personally, I only did it because we were out of locking strip.  It's a pain compared to using the 'proper' lock strip.

[IntegrityShirts]

Well don't forget that Don spends time making sure his products hold up to screen reclaim chemistry.  Is the strapping material going to be resistant or is it going to get soft and maybe fail, taking many times it's cost in mesh with it?  I think we're paying for that security when we buy the newman 'strapping' so to speak.  Then again chem's in our industry have likely gotten milder in the last twenty years so maybe thats not the concern it once was.

Newman products are also designed for ultra high tension.  Ironically so, since so few go this route, but my point is that all the variables get multiplied exponentially when you make that jump from mid thirties to sixty+ n/cm.  So it might be that newman sells 'strapping' that can handle this and ensures it's consistent.  I'm sure that costs more than common strapping if thats the case.

Just wanted to play devils advocate here.

All good points.  Does anyone have the black newman strip roll they can measure the dimensions for me?  I'm pretty sure the frames I bought that have black strips in them are actually strapping and not Newman brand but they seem to have held up to a lot of abuse by the looks of the frames lol!

[jsheridan]

The black strip was used for very low mesh (80 and under) as the standard lock strip didn't fit in the channel along with the mesh.

Even I'll say if you need a low mesh screen, get the pre-made panels as it's a Royal PIA to load in 60 mesh with strips.