How a Pelican Case is made

Here on LensVid we love to take a look at how photography related products are made. This time around we take a look at how Pelican cases are made. These are some of the most popular hard cases in the world, they are used by the military and police, firefighters, scientists and technical teams but also by professional photographers who want to carry delicate expensive photographic equipment to the field and make sure that it stays protected and safe.

The cases start as tiny plastic pallets which are stored in large silos and these are heated to a liquid form and then injected using a huge press called Colossus which uses the molds to create the cases. 

The assembly is done using both robots and human assembly. The cases have a valve which are meant to allow the user to open the case even if there are different pressures our of the case (for example if the case went onto a plane).

The case typically comes with foam which the user can cut into a specific shape (for example

The original Pelican was designed as an air-tight case which is watertight and airtight case (the original designer was interested in diving and the first case was a first aid kit which was watertight), but the cases today serve a much bigger customer base and specifically in the photo and video industries they are extremely common.

You can find many more video showing the manufacturing process of photography equipment from Nikon, Sigma, Leica, Zeiss, Broncolor and more on or dedicated “how do they make it” section here on LensVid.

Iddo Genuth
Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.

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