Thread: FSI Kit Eras
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Old 09-27-2011, 09:28 PM
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Default RE: the 1970 thrust ring shock cord anchor

Quote:
Originally Posted by stefanj
The 1970 catalog shows a thrust-ring style shock cord mount. The "classic" kit instructions show a paper tab shock cord mount. Were many kits produced with the former? Has anyone seen an instruction sheet from this era?
I read that page in the 1970 catalog a little differently. Instead of a a previous anchor design (an earlier product), I read the copy as instructions on how to modify a thrust ring or centering ring to serve as an attachment point or anchor for the shock cord. IOW, I don't see a product being offered that has a specific role of anchoring the shock cord. The threaded paper patch (#SA-6) was the only shock cord anchor that FSI ever sold, from what I can see.

From what I understand, the Orbit, Sprint and Micro were added in 1968, only a year after the company opened. I'm not sure how this affects your breakdown of eras.

My general impression is that some of the older FSI kit designs were tweaked multiple times during their production run. I haven't had the impression that this followed any identifiable pattern, in that one kit's design tweak didn't herald a new "era." But leaving that aside, there were certainly the Roos era and the Reese era, and there were new directions taken (expansions of the line, rather than wholesale shifts in direction) under the Reeses in the 70s, 80s and finally in 1990.

In the set of catalogs at Ninfinger, the Select-A-Chute appears in all catalogs through the 1980s as Cat. No. P-12. (For example, see p. 39 of the 1986 catalog.) It was changed to catalog #7114 in the 1990s catalogs (p. 28). It appears to have been offered throughout the company's lifetime.
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