Hi -- Steve Kriesel replying to ... ahem ... a fair amount of speculation and mis-information here.
I'm the owner/founder of Torpedo Bags (trumpet cases made in the USA since 2005) and the excited new owner of Glenn Cronkhite Custom Cases. We will continue making these in the USA inside our factory.
Long story short — Glenn Cronkhite tuba bags DON'T use clips on their straps. They are sewn in on both ends, and we will continue to do that.
In the EUPHONIUM bag photo, that’s the plastic hardware Glenn insisted on, since metal clips break MORE often than a good delrin clip. But it has to be a GOOD one, dig? This has been our experience with Torpedo Bags products, and our metal clips are 3X beefier than the metal clip in the photo someone posted, above. Metal clips break, sorry. And again, this whole discussion doesn't even apply to tuba bags.
Glenn showed me about 5,000 of that exact metal clip, and would not give them to me. He was going to throw them out for a reason. The brass clip in the photo above that someone called “a proper clip” was the one he was having issues with — I’d honestly get that swapped out, from what Glenn and others have told me, or double it up with a caribeener.
A good plastic clip will outlast just about any metal clip -- trust me, I've been doing this in the USA since 2005, and have tested everything. I found YKK and Nexus to be perfect. We'd get samples, freeze them, beat them with a hammer in a vise, then repeat after heating them in boiling water. If it broke, we didn't buy them. But mil spec YKK and Nexus are great products that aren't going to break like a metal clip -- I'm dead serious, and I'm aware it doesn't make sense. The fact that Glenn and others have come to the same conclusion should also back this up.
And to the comment above from Steve Ferguson at The Horn Guys about the standards was referring to the VERY FIRST 10 or so Cronkhite bags we made, the MUCH more difficult trombone bags. I was trying to do him a favor because he seemed anxious to get some trombone bags, so he got the first ones we made in July. We fixed the valid issues he observed mostly before he said anything to us -- most were easy fixes and we just needed some more practice -- but he has not seen the better bags from August.
But I look forward to your questions and support going forward. Torpedo Bags has an extremely good track record in the protection and durability department, and Glenn allowed me to take on this project because we share this mindset.
We're about 3 weeks out on orders, FYI.