Our founding story
How It Started
PNW Tool was created in response to finding broken window latches on a personal trailer. The latches had failed due to sun-rot of the plastic material. Like most people, we searched the internet for a replacement latch — but found that even when suppliers listed replacement latches on their websites, they were out of stock when we tried to order them.
We found out that the original window supplier, Atwood, had gone out of business and listings found on the internet were simply inventory that had never been updated. There were no replacement parts to be had.
The Solution
Having access to CNC lathes and mills, we decided to simply fabricate replacement latches for our trailer. Since it's just as difficult to make one as it is to make a dozen using CNC (computer numerically controlled) equipment, we chose to make two dozen and sell off the extras to pay for the initial material and development costs.
We were in contact with other RVers through internet forums and several people expressed interest in buying the extras. We ended up selling out within a day. After receiving more requests for replacement latches, we decided to set up a small internet store and continue making additional latches as long as people needed them. Although our trailer has single pane windows, we were able to work with other people who had dual pane windows to also design and fabricate replacement latches for dual pane windows.
Our Philosophy — Against Planned Obsolescence
Our personal philosophy is that we are disgusted by today's business practice of "planned obsolescence." While injection-molding the original Atwood latches from plastic was a cheap way to make a large volume of latches, Atwood had to know those cheap injection-molded latches would fail. The two most common causes of latch failure are either sun-rot — where the plastic latch just falls apart as happened on our trailer — or someone closing the window with the latch in the half-closed position, causing the latch to strike the window frame and snap.
While it would have been cheaper and quicker to machine our replacement latch design from plastic, we knew such a latch would not last. So we chose the more expensive route of fabricating our replacement latches from wrought 6061 aluminum so we would never have to replace our latches again.
The Lifetime Warranty
We firmly believe our latches will outlast your trailer, which is why we provide a lifetime warranty against breakage for all our latches. The latches will not rot due to sun. We believe that a person would have to slam their window shut with enough force to damage the frame or glass of the window before our latch would fail.
We are not looking for repeat business from our customers. Our goal is to sell you a replacement latch that will outlast your RV so that you will never have to think about it again.
Two Design Details Worth Explaining
You will note that we made two design changes compared to the physical features of the original Atwood latch. The first change is that the handle portion of our latch has an extra 0.300 inch diameter hole in it. This hole is necessary to allow us to easily mount the blanks on the CNC mill for machining.
The other extra feature you will find — specifically on dual pane latches — is an extra 0.125 inch diameter hole in the body of the latch. This hole was added because we had issues confusing single and dual pane latches during shipping. Since there is only a 3/8 inch length difference between the two, we had a couple of incidents where the wrong size latch was sent out. The extra hole on the dual pane latch makes them easy to differentiate. This identification hole is placed in an area where it will not affect the operation or strength of the latch.