In reply to beardy mike:
> It's got to be said though, in all my years of climbing, I've never needed tape resewing?
Nor me to be honest, though I like the idea that the facility is there. It's more just a prejudice that I don't quite trust a manufacturer who can't at least do a basic repair on their own premises or knock up a prototype to play with.
I did have some old Friends I was thinking of sending off to the USA to get new slings on a while back (they were past their sell-by date so WC wouldn't have been an option even while they were still re-slinging their cams), gave them away in the end though to someone looking to put a basic rack together for nowt. I'd have been happy enough with one of the DIY alternatives, but my most regular climbing partner would not have been so keen and also needs to have confidence in my gear ideally.
I went to a talk by Chris Reed of 'Reed Chillcheater' a while ago (fairly niche kayak/watersports 'wet' clothing manufacturer - not a big company, but not really a small one any more either). He was press-ganged into doing it at short notice at a sea-kayak symposium when someone else dropped out.
He talked at length about the efforts they go to to keep as much of their manufacturing in the UK and even in their corner of Devon as possible. For various reasons to do with providing employment in an area that doesn't have many of those kinds of jobs, maintaining a lot of control over the product and being able to offer repairs, alterations and bespoke stuff to customers. Though I suspect it's also largely because it's his company and he just really enjoys being able to go down to the workshop and make stuff himself. He enthusiastically went into a *lot* of textile-geek technical stuff at one point and I was struggling to stay awake for a while there, but it all struck me as really quite admirable.