ESB-4 Cases

[fender3x]

Standard wood cases are actually made from pretty thin ply and seem to rely on the covering to provide a lot of the strength. I think the tweed covered case that came with my Tokai Jazz is only about 3mm ply, and its showing signs of being well past its best. Quite possibly cheap (and light) softwood ply too I reckon. The trouble for us homebuilders is that by the time you've bought the ply, and Tolex or tweed outer covering and foam and felt or whatever inner and at least two thicknesses of foam there's a lot of different materials at small quantity prices, and don't get me started on the cost of glue...

Yes, the best cases I have had for guitar as you say. Even the name brand ones from Fender and Gretsch that I have had were thin plywood under Tolex. The Gretsch was pretty nice, even had an arched top, until a friend left it out in the rain and 30 years of mold spores all bloomed at once...<sigh>. The Fender case once survived a cross country trip in the cargo hold of an airliner, back when I was too innocent to know better. None of these would survive modern cargo treatment--and those were the better ones. The last acoustic guitar hard shell case that I had literally disintegrated. Thin wood just like the rest, but the glues gave out. I gave up on it when--despite practically doubling it's weight by adding duct tape--the bottom just fell out of it one day.

I have an ABS case for a horn. It's very strong, and shows no sign of wear although I have had it most of my life. If I had to get a hard-shell I'd get one of those--maybe a Road Runner.

I have thought about making one, but a decent case will be a lot of work, and not a lot cheaper than buying a hard shell case--and not as good as an ABS case. I used to make kayaks out of fiberglass. I could make something strong and light with that, but it is messy, toxic, and probably not worth divorce.

So, for now, the gig bag seems like the best option. The one I ordered arrives next week. Since it is extra deep I have been thinking about adding some reinforcement. There should be room above and below it...so thinking about that.

Meanwhile I have been thinking about what the ideal DIY guitar case would look like. It should be light, highly protective and easy to customize. I am thinking a thin plastic or plywood glued to styrofoam like in a bike helmet might work...

[JimC]

I am thinking a thin plastic or plywood glued to styrofoam like in a bike helmet might work...

To reduce the divorce risk epoxy resin is much less offensive than polyester as your kayaks would have been, but also far more expensive.

I've discussed this a lot on a bass guitar forum, where lighter weight cabinets is a significant point of interest, and I have an amateur boat building background and some experience with the materials. The thing is to add stiffness with styrofoam, pvc foam or whatever you need an inner skin. Whilst you can go very lightweight with excellent strength with plastic/foam/plastic sandwich construction, the problem you run into is puncture resistance.

If you don't want to be repairing a cabinet or case every other week then the outer skin requires a certain minimum strength. And by the time you've given it that, plus the foam and an inner skin of adequate strength, then you are up to much the same sort of weight as conventional plywood anyway. So for an instrument case moulded ABS with non structural foam inside is pretty much optimal. And for we homebuilders I fear the traditional fabric covered ply is still as good an option as any. A layer of fibre on the inside of the ply would add more puncture resistance than the same weight of ply, but at greater cost.

If money were no object then a kevlar case would have excellent properties and a superficial resemblance to tweed, but boy would it cost...