Pittsburgh’s Kerf Cases enrobes your phone in fine wood

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Let’s meet in Longmont on Wednesday

One iPhone case is very similar to the opposite unless it’s made of figured walnut wooden from a retired woodworker in California and feels like the skin of a finely-sanded and neatly-made piece of vintage cabinetry. That’s why Kerf instances, a Pittsburgh-based producer, is so cool.

The founder, Ben Saks, has been working in timber for most of his life. while working at Carnegie Mellon university he created his first case the usage of a handbook milling laptop and then, over the following six months, he perfected his design. He become an artist residency at Alpha Lab gear in 2014 and then joined Techship Pittsburgh the place he honed his product. finally he opened a facility in Pittsburgh’s East finish.

Saks makes circumstances for iPhones and the Pixel. they begin at $ ninety nine and are on hand in multiple woods including mahogany, cherry, and maple. all the items come from salvaged trees and Saks makes wallets and iPad equipment as neatly.

“‘Kerf’ is the thickness of subject material faraway from a saw blade, usually measured in 1/1000 of an inch. This same old wood working term is necessary to KerfCase’s philosophy, because it represents the precision needed to make our wooden iPhone cases,” stated Saks. “every piece of timber has a story, whether it’s a bit of reclaimed ground, or a beautiful burled wood from a neighborhood tree which was once broken in a storm. Our woodworking is a continuation of this story, connecting you to the historical past of the material.”

“Kerf just isn’t a startup, and it took us a very long time to realize this. our worth proposition is just not one thing that’s scalable like tool. via scaling, we’d lose an important elements of our business. we have grown slowly and organically, through phrase-of-mouth and a small, dedicated fanbase,” he said.

The case I examined, a deep and dark walnut version, is smooth and funky to the touch and if truth be told amplifies the speaker thanks to the way in which the timber surrounds the entire cellphone. It’s somewhat mild and feels far nicer than the original rubber case. It’s no richly inlaid wood case hand-made by way of a blind woodcutter but, i think, it’s the next highest thing.