If you’re building your own road cases, you’re already ahead of the game. DIY means control over design, customization, and—most importantly—cost. But while you might be saving on labor, material costs can still sneak up on you. Full sheets of laminated plywood, EVA foam, and polypropylene panels are often the priciest items on your list.
Purchasing Offcut Panel and Foam Material For Your DIY Road Cases and Save 35%
That’s where offcuts come in. At Armor Cases, we’ve turned leftover materials into a goldmine for DIY builders.
What Are Offcuts and Why They’re a Game-Changer
Every day, our workshop machine center cuts panels and foam for custom road cases. This process naturally produces offcuts—pieces that are too small for full-size cases but still perfectly usable. Instead of discarding them, we keep anything with a shorter side of at least 400MM. These offcuts are stored in our dedicated rack and tracked in our Offcut Management System, making them easy to browse and buy.
And here’s the best part: offcuts are sold at a 35% discount compared to full sheet prices.
For offcuts that are less than 400MM in size, unfortunately due to economic reasons, they are going to our waste bins. These offcuts are completely free. These smaller offcuts are good for generating the smaller parts for a road case such as the side panels of a cable packer lid, or speaker case base. They are also large enough for building smaller cases such as record cases, or other smaller road cases.
The same is true for our EVA and EPE foam offcuts. Smaller pieces have to be binned but they often have various use even outside the case building application. They are useful for heavy duty packaging and insulation.
If you have long term needs of such offcut material, we can work with you to accumulate and sort the different types of offcuts for you and arrange scheduled pickup. This helps to save our environment by having less of them going to landfill.
Available types of offcuts:
- EVA foam offcuts for custom padding
- EPE foam offcuts for lightweight protection
- Laminated plywood offcuts for structural panels
- Polypropylene panel offcuts for lightweight builds
These materials are the same high quality we use in our full-size cases—just smaller and more affordable.
How Offcut Pricing Works
We calculate offcut prices based on their area compared to a full sheet:
(Area of offcut ÷ Area of full sheet) × Full sheet price × 35%
So if a full sheet of birch plywood costs $100 and an offcut is one-sixth the size, you’re looking at just $7. That’s serious savings—especially when you’re building multiple cases or experimenting with new designs.
Here’s another hidden benefit: offcuts are cheaper to ship. Full sheets are bulky, heavy, and often require freight shipping. Offcuts, on the other hand, are compact and which means they cost less in shipping, are easier to handle. For customers who can not pickup from our warehouse, shipping offcuts usually means saving close to 200 dollars of shipping cost. In fact, to most interstate customers, the cost of shipping large sheets can often exceed the cost of the sheet material themselves.
How to Get Started with Offcuts
We’ve made it easy to browse and buy. Just visit our Armor Case Management System, where you can:
- View available offcuts by material type
- Check dimensions
- Screenshot the items that are suitable for your need and send them to us via email to confirm availability. There is small chance some offcuts displayed in the system might become unavailable when checking. This is usually due to a delay in updating the system after our workshop used some offcuts during the day but haven’t updated the system yet. The system is updated at the end of business day by workshop machinist. As a result, it is worthwhile to include alternative items in your screenshot in case the one you want to buy is not available.
If you have trouble logging in to the system and see the offcuts available, please send below information to us so we can reply with what is available in the system:
A list of the smallest offcut size that you think will work for your project, and qty
We will provide a walkthrough video to guide you over the browsing and ordering process.
Build Smart, Save Big, Save Environment
Offcuts aren’t just leftovers—they’re opportunities. With Armor Cases’ offcut system, you get premium materials at discounted prices, reduced shipping costs, and the flexibility to build exactly what you need.
Whether you’re a seasoned road case builder or just starting out, offcuts offer a smarter, more sustainable way to create. So next time you’re planning a build, skip the full sheets and explore our offcut rack. Your budget, your back, and the planet earth, will thank you.