Case Handles?

[Andrew Schrock]

On Thu, 17 Jul 1997, Bob Zimmer wrote:

> At 08:02 PM 7/16/97 -0700, you wrote:
> >I am looking for some good handles to put on my modular cabinets to make
> >them more portable.  I'd like the kind I've seen on professional road
> >cases, where the handle rests in an indented shell but can be pulled out
> >when being used.  Anybody know of a supplier for such a thing?
> >
> >Romeo
> 
> Some of the large mail order music houses offer them in their catalog.  Do
> a search on Yahoo (or your favorite search engine) and check their web site.

As somebody that moves equipment around a lot, I would highly suggest
abandoning wooden-type cabinets. I personally use SKB racks for all my
equipment. Admittedly this is expensive, but I think it's worth the 150
bucks that I have to shell out for a 12 space rack to be sure that my
equipment is all safe and sound. I usually keep well over $1000 worth of
rackmount items in any given rack, and some people can realistically keep
around $10k worth. 

SKB racks I use have rubber gaskets around the side, and thus are moisture
and dust proof when locked in the closed position, and are made of
military-grade polyethylene. This makes the cases exceptionally light, and
will never crack, warp, or degrade. The worst things I've seen happen to
one of these cases, even when setting up for shows, are scrapes and nicks
on the side. I couldn't imagine how you would go about *breaking* one of
these things. 

With synths especially, socketed chips and other associated parts can
jostle loose surprisingly easily.. wooden cases basically don't absorb any
vibrations at all. I wouldn't have any qualms about my equipment even if
there was a flood in my music room (aka my bedroom). This actually
happened this past year, and I felt much more assured knowing that I
wouldn't be seriously out of luck afterwards. 

I believe the bottom line is that home-made cases made out of wood and
vinyl/carpet are fine for home use, but once you start moving equipment
around, you put a lot more at risk. I am advocating SKB, but I'm in no way
affiliated with them. There are many other fine companies out there that
create comparable cases, I just used SKB as an example since I've used
them almost exclusively in the past. 

Take care,
Andrew