Designed by Army veteran, Chris Elfering, the LOCHBY brand brings together tough cases with fine pens and paper. These waxed canvas tools are well made and after using them for a few weeks, I am a true fan of the cases and of Chris!
LOCHBY, per the company website, loosely translates to “Lake Town,” which is a nod to Chris’ hometown of Minneapolis, MN. Chris started making cases in 2017 under another brand but now after perfecting the design, he has some very well made cases to help with your everyday carry needs.
Currently there are three cases to choose from in two color options. There is the Field Journal, Tool Roll, and the Pocket Journal and the color options are black and tan interior, or brown with an orange interior
Pictured below is the black and tan editions.
Going into the cases, the field journal and the pocket notebook cases come with custom made notebooks. These are made with stitch binding and kraft brown covers, and come with a surprise! The paper is the well known Tomoe River paper from Japan. This paper is the most perfect paper for fountain pens. It has a balance of density and texture that almost any fountain pen will work beautifully with it.
The notebooks come in dot grid, ruled, blank, and wide ruled. The clever design on the cover lets you know what format the notebook is.
Note the honeycomb shape…more on this down below.
To keep the notebooks slim, each comes in 72 pages and the field journal has space for 3-4 notebooks that you can insert into the elastic binding. There is also a pocket in the back to hold an extra notebook, or loose papers. My favorite notebook is the ruled version due to the page layout with numbered lines and tab spacing to help me keep my notes organized.
After getting to know these notebook cases, I keep finding hidden small features that are easily missed looking at them online. The first being that the field journal and pocket notebook have velcro pockets in the back. Second, the field journal has an extra pen loop for small pens or pencils in the back, along with a pen loop in the interior that gets secured with the closure strap. The field journal is a great size overall and holds a variety of other notebooks in the A5 range (~8in x 6in.)
The pen roll has its own unique design that sets itself apart from other pen rolls. It closes in thirds to help when packing it into my backpack. The almost flat design helps put other small things in as well in the velcro mesh pocket like extra pencil lead, erasers, and sharpeners. The Tool Roll has it’s own secret pocket as well hidden behind the pens are separate pockets that can hold notecards, field note notebooks or even a cell phone.
These cases are clearly built to last. I don’t know where these are made, but the quality is way above what I would expect. My guess is that they are made in Vietnam due to something Chris said, and also because any good backpack or case is made here due to their high level of quality control. The double stitching in the binding around any exposed edge shows that these were designed with the user in mind, not cost savings.
From the YouTube page, you can see the genius of the tool roll and the many options it offers.
For pricing, these cases are a bargain.
Field Journal $49
Pocket Journal $39
Tool Roll $44
Quattro $34
Notebook Refills $6/8
I had the pleasure of asking Chris a few questions about his company and wanted to share them with you…
How long was the designing and prototyping process to come up with these tools?
CE: It took several years. I'm from the US, but moved to Vietnam to be closer to soft goods factories. In 2017, after several months of development, I brought a few products to market through my previous brand, BOND Travel Gear. Those products were the Field Journal, Pocket Journal, and Tool Roll. Since then, we took feedback from the community to improve them as well as upgraded the fabric to waxed canvas.
Is working at LOCHBY your full-time job?
CE: It sure is!
How long were you in the military and what kinds of work did you do while in the service?
CE: I was in for six years. Two and a half of those years were in Iraq. I led convoys and worked with the Iraqi Army as part of a military transition team.
What is your current favorite pen? From the looks of your Instagram account, you have a lot of good ones!
CE: That's a tough one. I'd say it's between the Lamy 2000 and Pilot Custom 823. Either of those is my go-to daily writer.
Do you have any new products in the works?
CE: Always! Right now we're working on adding more colors to our current offerings. We're also looking at pouches and bags. It's a long process to get all the details right, so it'll be a while before those come out.
What really sets Chris above other product designers is his attention to detail. The waxed canvas is a great material to use but Chris incorporates this into the theme of this material. Starting when you receive your package, there is a wax seal on the box.
He also mimics the honeycomb shape in the notebook covers as you can see in the above picture showing the page layout. Finally, he picked honeycomb ripstop nylon for the interiors of the cases! I feel like there is more that I may have missed, but it is really cool to see all the effort that went into every part of these cases. I hope you will check out his products at his main site here: LOCHBY.COM If anything is sold out, hold tight and get on his mailing list to see when the next batch is ready.
I think everyone will agree with me in saying thank you Chris for your service and for making some great tools we can all use!
Mike
FYI: As with all my reviews I buy all the products and do not receive anything for free.
