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Such is the case with the handles of most cases I've had experience with. Metal screen-door handles make for excellent replacements.

If it's like my short-lived baritone saxophone case, the latches are no more durable. After "gate check" incident at airport: Handle survived. Front latch is gone, middle latch broken.

The ABS body and aluminum valance aren't so brittle, but neither are they very rigid, and they aren't securely attached to each other. This case presents the appearance of strength, only. I know, not that it matters - under handling like that, contents aren't going to be saved by a strong case - but if you want a durable case, maybe look elsewhere.

It's a shame cases have to be so crappy. For little or no additional money and a little bit of redesign... all of the hardware could be recessed. As far as what Bloke is talking about.... simply adding a nickels worth of engineered plastic would fix the issue on the SKB case handle.

I NEVER put a case on any form of commercial transport without putting stretch-wrap over the latches.

My SKB rotomolded 4 space rack case has good plastic, worn out latches. I will be in the same boat with that.

Cutting corners in the wrong places, they are. Not a good sign.

Manufacturers of relatively expensive items getting cheap to save nickels on what some bean counter considered a non-crucial part drives me crazy. It has gotten to the point that when I get a new item I now look at what I should "fix" before using.

It's like nobody learned from the infamous Ford Pinto Case in which Ford to save $11 did not fix a known fuel system design flaw (just a small flaw - the car would explode ) Wonder if SKB did a risk/benefit analysis on the cost of upgrading the handle vs the cost of litigation over damaged tubas from handle failures. They probably figure nobody will spend the bucks to pursue litigation due to the cost vs the value of the tuba. Companies seem to ignore the hit to the reputation of their products take when word spreads of broken handles and damaged horns. That certainly is a cost over and above the monetary costs of product failures.

Reputation, excuse me? This stuff flows out of essentially nameless and interchangeable Chinese factories. That's fine with everyone, as long as it's cheap. When it turns out to be trash, we swallow our disappointment and console ourselves with more trash. Reputation is great, if it can be had for free.

SKB cases have a lifetime guarantee. Contact them and they will send you new handles or latches or wheels or whatever at no charge. If your case completely fails, like with a cracked shell, return it to them and they will replace it. (Shipping costs may be an issue, I mean a feature.) Fineprint, something, something, http://www.skbcases.com" target="_blank

F
/doesn't excuse cheap parts
//we want good
///and also cheap
4*/nice offer though
5*/you stop those slashies right now

Donn wrote:Reputation, excuse me? This stuff flows out of essentially nameless and interchangeable Chinese factories. That's fine with everyone, as long as it's cheap. When it turns out to be trash, we swallow our disappointment and console ourselves with more trash. Reputation is great, if it can be had for free.

Huh?

bloke wrote: That having been said, I personally prefer "lifetime durability" to "lifetime warranties".

bloke "and emailing about/waiting to receive/replacing broken fragile hardware several times could quickly become tedious."

Yeah I'm with you. I've had several battery tenders fail from a certain firm and they had a lifetime warranty which was useless as you had to pay to ship to them and then pay to ship them back. Then you had to hope they didn't blame you for the failure. The cost for shipping was almost what the cost for a new one - so much for a useless lifetime warranty. They lost my business and their reputation has cost them as word has spread amongst those who collect cars.

Well... in terms of case durability... there aren't many 'survivors' out there!

I just wish either MTS or SKB would put up some dimensional data so we had some insight into what fits what.

Joe... the MTS case that you shipped the Marzan in is actually a dab too small for that horn. I thought maybe I put the Marzan back together wrong but I checked the fit of my 'slant-rotor' Marzan (which has the same bugle) and my Miraphone 1291 (which fits nicely into an ORIGINAL Marzan case. The MTS has a large wedge of foam in the top. Measuring from the inside bottom of the case and up to the 'wedge' in the top of the case... there is only about 18" for a bell although side-to-side on the bottom half of the case, it appears that a 20" bell will fit. NOT!

None of this is a problem for me but I would hate to be the poor sap paying $500 or so for a case based on some 'I THINK it will fit' advice.

We have an SKB case and an MTS case, both the large one. Both were taken to school a lot (the SKB case three times a week for a school year); the MTS case also got to go on a half dozen airplane rides.

The wheels on the SKB case are awful: the bearings are junk, and can't survive the weight of the tuba case on typical concrete sidewalks in and out of school. Nor are they sealed, and grit and dirt gets into the bearings and grinds them apart quickly. After a year of school trips, they were no longer rolling. But SKB's customer service was excellent, they shipped up replacement wheels (complete assemblies in the plastic housings). Grinding off the rivets to remove the old wheels was a bit of a pain. I modified the wheels to now have a removable axle (5/16" bolt accessible from outside without removing rivets), and outfitted them with good completely sealed bearings (skateboard stores carry those), so I expect those to live longer.

On the MTS case, one of the wheels got jammed with some packing tape on a plane trip, and the case was dragged over some hard floor for a considerable distance. Now that wheel has about 1/2" ground off on one side, and doesn't roll any more either. Unfortunately, MTS's customer service is not excellent, but actually in fact unreachable. What I'll do is to remove the plastic wheel case on this case too, and replace wheel/bearings/axle with a completely new set too.

The handle and latches have survived so far.

On the SKB case, the fit of the case is so bad that the aluminum (!) hinge is breaking apart at the ends. This is going to be much harder to fix, since it would require reshaping the plastic shell to fit correctly, so I'll live with it. The MTS case seems to be generally sturdier and better built (everything fits better).

I look at it this way. These cases cost roughly $500, which is about 1/20th of the value of their content. In our extremely heavy use (3 times a week), they will probably last 2-3 years, with annual repairs. That works out to a few hundred $ per year for cases. Compared to all the other costs of playing a tuba (buying an instrument that can easily have a 5-digit price tag, classes with a good teacher, rolling out the dents that are unavoidable in a high school band room, buying sheet music, and so on), the case is not a major factor. So maybe we need to treat these plastic cases as a disposable wear item: repair them regularly, and replace them every so often.

If there were a convenient case that cost a little bit more, but was built well enough to not require repairs, and be reliable for a decade, I would love to buy those. The really sturdy wooden flight cases aren't that, since they are too bulky.

ralphbsz wrote:...... So maybe we need to treat these plastic cases as a disposable wear item: repair them regularly, and replace them every so often....

Those Chinese foam and cloth zippered cases are pretty much disposable. The zipper is the first thing to go but that can be remedied with a bungie cord.

Just joking... as I often do.

I have three cases that I use regularly depending on where I'm going. All three cases fit (somewhat) my primary three horns. The first is a UniTek that weighs waaaay too much for a kid to handle and the original 'dinky' wheels sucked badly. I replaced them with 5" diameter ball bearing industrial casters under the bell end. It's fine as long as there are wheelchair ramps where I'm going. The second case is an original Marzan wood case to which I've added the same 5" wheels to the bell end. It's fine and 1/4th the weight of the UniTek case. However... there is little or no padding inside. The third case, which I just recently acquired, is an MTS. This case seems, like Baby Bear says "just right", expect again, the wheels are stupid small and the damned thing refuses to roll straight when being pulled behind.

Cases of any style seem to present the illusion being formidable. In my humble opinion, cases should be handled with the same care as a bare horn. NONE of them offer protection to being jacked up and down stairs and I think the majority of bell damage I see might have been done while the horn is INSIDE the case.

DP wrote:

Donn wrote:Reputation, excuse me? This stuff flows out of essentially nameless and interchangeable Chinese factories. That's fine with everyone, as long as it's cheap. When it turns out to be trash, we swallow our disappointment and console ourselves with more trash.

+1

Dale... I still haven't figured out how your video clip loads five... fires one... and then loads five more! Is that a Chinese weapon?

DP wrote:
Dale... I still haven't figured out how your video clip loads five... fires one... and then loads five more! Is that a Chinese weapon?

Dan you really need to read up more on global climate change[/quote]