I’d rather not drag the beautiful wooden case that my McGee lives in around
to sessions and workshop, so I’m looking for a safe way to transport the
instrument.
I generally keep several instruments in their cases or pouches inside of a
larger Haliburton aluminum case, so what I’m trying to find is a case about
the size of the lovely wood box, but not necessarily wood, or lovely, but
that will protect the flute from the other instruments in the larger case.
If it would stand alone as a case, that would be fine as well, but isn’t my
primary concern since generally I bring the larger case whereever I go.
Any ideas? I’ve tried Fry’s and Walmart, the best I could find was a steel
60 CD holder that could be modified and turned into a reasonable wooden
flute case. I’m not very confident about the plastic latch on it so I
didn’t buy one this trip.
I’ve also got one of David Migoya’s black stiff leather cases, but its more
for unkeyed flutes, I guess a 4-key would be fairly safe in it.
Anyway, just curious what others have used.
Also, anyone know if a medium size Pelican case that’s 21x14x8.5 inches fits
in the overhead of an American Airlines Super 80? That’s what I’m planning
on using to transport my instruments to Swannanoa in a couple of weeks.
The other option many have taken is to wander down to your local sporting goods store and buy a hard handgun case. They range in price from $20 to over $200 (depending on how durable you want it), and usually have foam cores you can cut to mold to your instrument.
Someone told me a story about a piper at the Willie Clancy festival a year or so ago who kept his Tim Britton set in a heavy duty rifle case. He caught some ribbing for it until a truck backed over the case and both the case and the pipes were undamaged.
I guess the ribbing was worth preserving a $10-15,000 set of pipes.
I’d also highly recommend the riflepistol case idea for reliability and durability. You may get some looks in an airport.
I use them to transport panpipes around including a set of pipes around 5 feet tall in a black powder riffle case. Not quite as pricey as pipes but amazingly hard to get ahold of a well tuned set. Never had anyone run them over but plenty of van doors have slammed on 'em. Oh yeah, if you ever play for the local FBI office they will check them out very carefully, trust me.
as the one-time provider of cases, and now not, I’ve actually found a nice alternative (and use it for my own flute now) is the Doskecil hard plastic, lockable, handgun case you can find at just about any reputable sporting goods store, perhaps even a Wal-Mart. David Copley is sending his flutes in them, I think. Anyway, the foam is too thick as is for a keyed flute (it would press the keys open when case is closed) so hand-trimming the thickness of the foam on each side works well.
Oh…price of the case (which I couldn’t even beat!)…$4
Light as a feather and easy to carry under the arm or in hand.
Oh…they’re only good for Rudall-style flute bodies of two pieces, not the solid-body Pratten variety.
At that point, I think I would have put a thick coat of varnish on the case to preserve the tire tracks for posterity… but I’m strange that way. 