CAP Corner Guards, Committed to Quality

In this day and age it can seem like the quality of building materials has gone down considerably. We live in homes that feature cheap particle board walls and pressed wood floor joists. We work in offices that are thrown up in a very short period of time with doors that won't close and corners that don't match. It seems like the days of quality are long passed. At CAP Corner Guards we still value quality materials as the highest standard of professionalism. We strive to make the finest stainless steel corner guards on the planet. It is that simple, the reason we get up in the morning and why we burn the midnight oil to provide our customers with corner guards of exceptional fit and finish.

Planned Obsolescence

All this talk of materials had us thinking about where the division occurred between quality and production. A world where volume means more than structural integrity. It is like automobiles, the more the large manufacturers can pump out the faster they can sell them. Interestingly enough, a concept called planned obsolescence was implemented in the automotive industry. At the beginning of the 20th century the automobile was fairly standard. No matter which brand you bought they all looked remarkably similar. As consumer demand started to grow for the automobile and they evolved from a novelty into a necessity, automakers began to try and stand out in the market. General Motors was one of the first to start changing the look of their vehicles every couple of years. The base technology was not updated but the styling and features were marked as more modern. Planned Obsolescence was devised to sell more cars and for the most part it worked.

Aesthetic Upgrades

The prices of cars and trucks stayed within the reach of the average consumer and the factory did not need to update their tooling as often. Tooling is the molds and such that are utilized by the factory to make cars. New tooling is able to produce tight tolerances and good fitting parts. As the factory tooling ages, the tolerances become worn and not everything fits as it should. Basically the body and interior of a vehicle was redesigned but the running gear of the vehicle was sometimes a design that had not been updated in a decade. This created obvious problems when it came to reliability. The outside of the vehicle looked like a new car but engine and running gear issues were rampant. Eventually consumers became tired of the substandard quality that had become standard.

A New Era

Interestingly enough, it was not completely government intervention that changed the automotive industry, it was good old fashioned completion. Beginning in the 1950s the rise of a new kind of car hit American shores. The Japanese and German economies had rebounded after WWII and both were thriving. Japanese cars began to trickle in, and proved to be superior in quality to the American offerings of the day. Although foreign automakers did not gain a large foothold right away, the writing was on the wall. Domestic automakers had to up their quality in order to compete. By the 1960s Volkswagen had emerged as a player in the economy car game and made a huge impact on the way people thought about vehicles in general. Their marketing took the concept of planned obsolescence and deliberately presented their vehicles as the opposite. The domestic automakers had their backs up against the wall and around the time the gas crisis hit in the 1970s it signaled a drastic shift. Seemingly overnight the focus went from low quality vehicles to reliable, efficient modern cars that only require periodic maintenance to stand the test of time. Volkswagen and the Japanese car companies changed the way American car manufacturers made cars and in turn how they looked at their customers.

Quality Above Profits

It is a fine line between producing a high quality product and still making a profit. Thankfully there are small companies willing to go the extra mile to make a product how it should be made. The thing that most large companies forget is the customers, without them they would have to close the doors, so why ship a substandard product? This is one of the dilemmas that plagues industry today. With the global economy being connected with the click of a mouse, it is harder to make an inferior product and survive. We like to think that the days of American made products that are built to last, has finally returned.

Superior Quality Corner Guards

At CAP Corner Guards we believe in providing our customers with the perfect solution for corner protection. It would be extremely easy to make a substandard product and charge a premium but we don't believe in doing business that way. When you order a product from CAP Corner Guards you know you are getting a piece of material that we will put up against with anything out there for durability and finish. We craft our corner guards using the finest 16 gauge stainless steel in a wide variety of lengths and widths, coated in a satin #4 finish. You will simply not find a better corner guard for your project. We are committed to quality and you can rest assured that when you order CAP Corner Guards you are getting a piece reminiscent of when quality mattered and durability was expected.