Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Incomplete Review

Sorry it has been so long since I have updated the blog.  There have been a lot of things that have prevented me of doing a full review.  First off, even though I got a personal fitting for this belt it wasn’t with Walter the owner and designer of the belt.  Seems the waistband I got was too big and even on the tightest setting I was able to pull it over my hips.  This really made the belt ineffective.  So I did recently met with Walter when he was back in Chicago and I am getting a new waistband sent to me which should help me do a proper review.  Here is s preliminary review of my experience so far based on my four criteria: 

Comfort:  This is hard to say, along with the waist band being to big we determined the crotch string was too short, because of this the waist band was pulled down on top of my his painfully so after a few hours.  I’m also getting a longer string being sent so I think that will help.  Another problem I’ve had is where the waist band connects to the locking protector in front there is can be some painful pinching of the skin between the band and the plate.  I was able to solve this myself by wrapping some vet tape around those two connection points.  Going to the bathroom is ok and getting the belt clean while on is ok, but I haven’t had it on long enough to really test that. 

Security:  Hard to say.  I believe it would be a very effective device if sized right. 

Quality of construction:  Seems very good.  This is a intimidating belt and I think will offer may years of use will some routine maintenance.

Customer service:  Well I can’t say I’ve been happy here.  The gentleman who did the first fitting was real quick to get back to my e-mails but he wasn’t really able to do anything to fix the fitting problem.  Walter never got back to me, which was frustrating.  So it took 6 months to meet up with him in Chicago then he didn’t have the right style of belt with him so now I’m waiting another 2 months to get that.  I think we could have fixed it over e-mail and he had responded earlier.  Plus now I’m going to have to do all of the bending myself where originally they did a lot of it with some special tools they had created, this is thick steel on the carrara belt and hard to bend.  I will say Walter is very nice fellow and took ownership of the fitting issues and is fixing them without any problems.       

Sorry the review is incomplete once I get my new waist belt and string in the next month and do all the necessary bending then I will embark on the weeklong challenge of wearing it continuously.  I think then I will be able to give an accurate review.