Pelican Case for flight case?

[mdc2d]

I have seen these cases several times for certain electronic items (i.e. recording equipment etc.) and I got to wondering if they made a case large enough to hold a tuba. These are cases are virtually indestructible and seem to me would be lighter weight than say a metal flight case. Obviously you would have to have a lot of heavy duty foam on the inside to make a custom fit, but I thought it was interesting. They seem very well built. Not sure about price, but the smaller ones seem to be very affordable.

http://www.pelican.com/cases_detail.php?Case=0550" target="_blank" target="_blank

[mdc2d]

On another look the transport case weighs 79 lbs. with out any foam or cargo for that matter. Still interesting though...

[smyoung]

Interior Dimensions: 47.57" x 24.07" x 17.68" (120.8 x 61.1 x 44.9 cm)

I had this idea a while back, but was disappointed that the dimensions of their largest case were too small for my tuba.

Unless I'm mistaken, it seems that this case might not be big enough depending on the diameter of your bell and the overall size of the horn (well, duh). You'd have to have a pretty small bell if you wanted to still have some foam surrounding the edge of the bell with the horn in the case. Not a bad idea for a euph or tbone, though...

Who knows, though, they might be willing to build a custom-size case for more $$$

- Stephen

[Norm Pearson]

Who knows, though, they might be willing to build a custom-size case for more $$$

- Stephen

In order for them to make a custom size they would have to have a mold built first. My father was in the tool and die business and back in the 1980's made quite a few molds for Pelican Products including a long case for guns and camera equipment cases etc. 25 years ago the injection mold for the gun case was in the $100,000 range. Even if by some chance they have a mold sitting around that is tuba sized they would have to be assured that they will sell a lot of product in order for them to put it into production.

It is possible that they have a tuba sized case in production for military purposes that may not be in the catalog. It wouldn't hurt to write them and ask.

Norm Pearson

[imperialbari]

http://tinyurl.com/Pelican-text-document