just sold an SKB case, and noticed this...

[ralphbsz]

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.

[Dan Schultz]

...... 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.

[Dan Schultz]

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?

[Dan Schultz]

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]