Let's be realistic - in the real world,folk don't stand on their cases !.That argument is purely hype for the case companies. I really can't see a situation where a case would be subjected to say,my weight, 220 Lbs unless placed under a huge amount of other baggage in an aircraft baggage hold,& i wouldn't expect such a small case to be placed 'under' larger baggage items.
A banjo playing friend of mine,whom i haven't seen for many years,had a Calton banjo case for his pre-war Gibson banjo. At one point he dropped it whilst removing it from the boot ('trunk' to you folks !) of his car. It only dropped about 2 foot to the ground, but the impact was sufficiently hard for the resonator flange to chop through the resonator & splinter part of it off. I did the repair for him & at the same time re-furbished his banjo. The Calton case did absolutely nothing that any other case wouldn't have done & one of the latches was badly damaged. Indeed a softer,lighter case more well padded inside might have prevented the damage. It's the inside of the case that really matters & IMHO,it needs to be as shock absorbent as it can be.
From Almeria above - "Fiberglass has a lot going for it in terms of compression resistance and good impact resistance."
That depends on the orientation of the F/glass plies in the lay-up. Subject to too much pressure & they'll de-laminate. Also.F/glass itself is weak re.impact & you need to add Kevlar to make it impact resistant. I've done 100's of impact / peel strength / de-lam.tests on F/glass /CF ' CF/glass etc. & they all yeilded good results for 'some' circumstances but not all. The very finest F/glass cases were as i've mentioned several times on here,the old Mark Leaf cases made from what we termed 'chopped strand' F/glass,where the fibres intermixed with the resin matrix to form a case shell that had nothing in it to de-laminate
as the were no laminations to begin with. Despite their inherent strength,the ML cases were also very well padded inside,that was one reason that i decided to buy mine in Owensboro back in '92. Unfortunately the ''chopped strand'' look ain't too Glam looking,but it's the best outer case construction that you could ever have (IMHO),
Ivan
Bookmarks