CalCo: Your Turn-Key Solution for Product Displays

CalCo likes a challenge! We have been in the business of solving our customers problems for almost 60 years.

CalCo started in 1953 as a cutaway shop taking products and cutting away a portion to show the internal parts since they can be a valuable selling tool.  We have come a long way over the years by adapting to customer needs and changes in product displays.  In that time, we have become a turn-key solution for our customers by adding new services.  Did you know there is a place you can go to get all of your product display needs performed at the same time?

In addition to cutaways,  CalCo provides :

• Working Models with or without a cutaway
• Product Displays
• Sales and Training Aids
• Lighting
• Custom Basemounts
• Custom Shipping Containers
• Acrylic covers  and Displays
• Point-of-Puchase Displays
• Custom Cases
• Scale Models and Rapid Prototyping
• Three Dimensional Printing
• Animation
• Sales Awards
• Corporate Gifts
• Plating
• Training Programs
• Professional Photography
• Waterjet Cutting

CalCo can solve your trade show or product display problems with just one phone call!  A typical project now involves creating a cutaway, attaching a brushed aluminum base or custom rolling basemount, building a custom shipping container and a shooting a professional photography session before the project is completed and shipped back to the customer ready to go directly to a trade show or presentation.

If you need help with your trade show, sales or training needs, call CalCo and let us make your idea a reality!

Shipping Containers You Can Rely On

We have all seen what happens to packages that get shipped through the mail. What about your valuable displays that need to be shipped from show to show?  This cargo can see even more abuse. How can you protect your prized display? With a custom permanent shipping container from CalCo.

CalCo’s steel framed wooden shipping containers are made to measure for your display with felt covered bumpers to hold your display in place and help it from getting damaged during long journeys. Each container is designed from the ground up to fit your project’s particular needs.  Options include:

• Custom holders for extra parts or literature
• Drawbridges (for items on rolling stands)- work well for items that are not too heavy and can help make your show set up quick and easy
• Heavier items or ones not on wheels can be forklifted into the shippers. CalCo also has c-channel basemounts for your displays to make them even easier to move by forklift.
• International grade containers- sail through customs by using all non-wooden materials

The steel frame makes a CalCo shipping container durable. Each container is framed in angle-iron strapping on all edges, thereby withstanding many bangs and bumps that are common, and many of those not-so-common abusive acts of fork-lifting.  Some customers have been using the same shippers for ten or fifiteen years. We provide them painted blue so they stand out in the sea of shippers at a show and are easily located. The hasps are heavy duty and can of course be locked to protect your display.

CalCo also offers international grade (non-wood) shipping containers. These can be sent to any international destination without worrying about getting caught up in a customs battle over the wood content and can help your delivery get there on time. These containers are made from fully tested, stronger than wood materials.

In addition to shipping containers, Calco can also provide cases of every kind.  Give CalCo a call at 847/639-3858 to solve all your shipping container needs.

CalCo’s New Brochure is Now Available

Fresh for 2010 Calco has developed a new brochure showing all of the services offered and some examples of the quality craftmanship that is synonymous with the CalCo name.  CalCo has been offering quality tradeshow displays and cutaways for over 50 years, especially to industrial product manufacturers.   Now see some of the other services available such as 3-D models or prototypes, working models, special lighting, custom bases, corporate gifts, POP displays and other tradeshow or marketing products.  You can count on CalCo as a turn-key solution for your sales and marketing needs.

The front and back cover of the new brochure are shown below, and the full PDF can be downloaded here. (right click and choose “Save As”)

To get a look inside our new brochure please send your information (name, company and address) to brochures@calcocutaways.com.  You will receive one in the mail right away so CalCo can help you start the year right with some new ideas to show your product in its best light because “Your Product is Our Profession”.

The Buck Stops Here

Your company uses a variety of vendors for certain products or services every day, making make life easier for everyone. So do we.

Your company probably uses a few providers that actually make life more difficult for you or your coworkers. Same here.

On Monday one of our primary vendors emailed to let us know that our project with them was complete. . .Great.

This was typical and expected. . .

However, the details on getting the order back to us were left out, forcing us to stop what we were doing, contact them about it and make these arrangements ourselves. Done.

Once the items were received, we found quality issues on practically every piece that was delivered. Where was the quality control??

We would have sent the entire order back to be redone from scratch, except that we needed these pieces for a larger project that our client was expecting on time. We had to stop what we were doing (again) and fix every mistake and flaw to bring this project back up to our high standard of quality, (which our client expects).

Everything worked out in the end, our client was thrilled with the final result and his coworkers were equally impressed with the craftsmanship and attention to detail, (and the shipping was arranged without our client’s involvement whatsoever).

So the extra effort on our end resulted in a great experience for our client. We love that.

The vendor’s actions, on the other hand, had to be managed, monitored and corrected.   Is this the case with some of your providers?

Communication and responsibility are the landmarks of a company you can trust for the long term. The reason companies like CalCo have been around for over half a century, is because they are trusted, respected and are the go-to guys when quality and professionalism are important.

Did you know that CalCo can handle your POP displays, your screen printing, your photography, your display storage, your prototyping, your sales cases, your website design, your 3D animation, your metal finishing, your large format printing, your digital image manipulation, and many of the other items you struggle with every day?  It’s true.

Please call or email to see if your project can be handled correctly this time by CalCo, let us handle the problems so you can just sleep easy for once.

CalCo Cutaways, Generations of Dependable Innovation

Around the time New York City was introducing their brand new, 3-color traffic lights, James Calhoun was founding a new business named CalCo, which would produce cutaways for product manufacturers in order to help them show off the many advantages to using their products.

Little did he know that his small business would grow into the most accomplished and experienced cutaway company in America, possibly even the world.

Even Jim himself couldn’t have foreseen the wide variety of offerings his company would eventually have to present to its customers, such as laser cut lighted display pedestals, 3D animation, custom training equipment, POP displays and much, much more.

In fact, CalCo’s unrelenting attention to detail and quality as well as their ability to create customized solutions on the spot is about all that hasn’t changed since 1953.

CalCo’s excellent reputation and insight into the needs of their clients will go a long way towards making the next half century of business just as revolutionary as the first.

How to Beat Wood Restrictions on International Shipments

To many people’s dismay, shipments can often be held in customs for an undue amount of time just because of the materials used to construct the containers that hold the shipped goods, and here’s why. . . Read the rest of this entry »

To upgrade from a CalCo Shipping Container you would need to order a Safe

In today’s perilous world of shipping and receiving, it is without a doubt that you have stories of shipments gone awry or trade show services as far from “service” as it gets. 

In this environment CalCo has responded by providing one of the best regarded and highly successful custom shipping containers available. 

Read the rest of this entry »

CalCo NEWS is Upgrading

For over 50 years CalCo has been innovating a unique craft and letting you know about it every step of the way. A bi-annual newsletter, arriving on your desk to remind you of upcoming projects or giving you ideas for an upcoming event has been working like a charm.

Today the vast line of CalCo products and services in growing and expanding a quicker pace, and your world is moving faster as well. Bringing the CalCo NEWS to an online format will help us keep you in touch and stay on top of what the industry is up to.

You can RSS feed the page to get regular updates at your own pace, and if you have any suggestions for this site and things you would like to see, feel free to drop a quick note using the email link at the top of the page.

CalCo is the same as always, and cares as much about the outcome of your project as you do. Hopefully the new format of CalCo NEWS will become as welcome as our printed version was. Thank you!