Re: Home-made hard cases


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Posted by Andrew Bove on January 28, 2003 at 01:51:59:

In Reply to: Home-made hard cases posted by curious on January 27, 2003 at 09:12:49:

About ten years ago, my father built a hard case for my tuba out of fiberglass. The fiberglass was reinforced a little bit on the inside with wood and fit both the tuba and the soft case. We have wondered if he over-engineered this design and could have made it a little lighter, but this case is extremely strong. When packed, I fill the bell until it is over-flowing with Styrofoam (peanuts in a garbage bag) to distribute the force applied to that side of the case down into the bell, over a wide surface, instead of just on the edge. The tuba has never sustained any damage while traveling... and I have flown with it a lot. I have even watched from a window as it dropped 15 feet off the edge of a conveyor belt while being unloaded from an airplane.

The construction was similar to building two fiberglass boats, then joining them together with a hinge. We found information on boat building at our local library. This project did take a lot of time, and was relatively expensive, but could have been more economical if more than one case had been built.


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