There are hundreds of case manufacturers providing numerous styles of shipping cases in various sizes and dimensions. Most of these case companies offer foam inserts. Some are layered foam that is cubed and some are solid layered foam. Most would like you to believe that their cube foam is an easy way to create your custom like foam insert.

If you've ever used cubed foam or tried to cut and assemble your own custom foam insert you will have to agree that the only real way to make sure your equipment is protected is to have a professional design and cut your custom foam insert specifically for the item you want protected and here's why.

Most cube foam inserts are cut from 3 or 4 inch thick foam pieces. In a typical 15" case base there would be 3 - 4" thick pieces and 1 - 3" thick layer of cubed foam. When you create your cavities in the initial 4" layer that works great as long as your item is 4" thick or less. What happens if one of your items is, say, 6" thick. Now the pick and pluck foam method becomes troublesome.

Another problem with cube foam is that as your items are pulled out of their cavities and pushed back into their cavities over and over again, the cube foam tends to degrade. Frequent pulling and pushing in and out of the cubed foam cavities causes them to start to degenerate in to small pieces and sections of the foam tend to break off. Now the case becomes filled with pick and pluck foam pieces rather than the custom cavities you were hoping for when you purchased the case.

By having a custom foam insert cut you don't have to worry about that flaking because the cavity was created by cuting a single solid piece of foam. Also, because custom foam inserts begin as huge foam blocks you don't have to worry about how thick layers are because not only is the horizontal dimension accurate but the vertical dimension can be cut to any height required.

In all ways a custom foam insert is worth the small additional money from the beginning. Even though pick and pluck (cubed) foam is less expensive in the beginning, by the time you replace it a couple of times before realizing that you should have had custom foam made to begin with, custom foam ends up being less costly if invested in from the beginning.

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