Official Luthiers Forum!

I've tried a lot of cases and I've never found one I'm 100% happy with. Cedar Creek's are very nice, but service can be slow (It's much better now than it used to be). Ameritage's just don't do it for me. It's all McPherson uses, and that's great, but I think they are kinda ugly, and heavy...I guess I'm just a tolex/traditional kind of guy. The Access cases are very nice for the money, and I'm currently using them on my electrics, and very happy with them. I was told the new and improved Stage 5 cases should be out this summer. Calton's are crazy heavy, and pretty specific in their usefulness, and it's a long wait and lotsa $$.

So in short there is no magic bullet case. Pick one that fits most of your needs and roll with it.

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John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

Some time back they were having a special on OM size cases, I think they were 220.0 or so, not the top of the line case but very nice. I ordered one for a 1931 OM. I was very please with the case itself, very well made, somewhat heavy but
that's the price you pay it seems. My only complaint was the fit was very tight for the OM, especially in the upper bout
area. I talked with them at NAMM and they are working on that dimension. I'd like to see if they made any changes.
Still a great case.

Best
Bruce

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Bruce Herrmann
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."

I don't know if it would help, but those cases can be reboxed. The boxes they come in are oversized enough that you can generally find a smaller box -- just a thought.

Has anyone bought from Calton lately? What was the wait time like?

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

In the interest of customer service, maybe that is something that Ameritage should have looked at in order to accommodate Bob and stick to the original quote they provided to ship the cases to him in Australia for $130 a unit. This would seem to be a much more appropriate response than to just leave him high and dry once they discovered the error in their own calculations.

Cheers

Kim

No doubt.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

When all this was happening with Bob, I was also in contact with Ameritage and tried to nail them down on a price for a case for my size 5. It took absolutely ages to get any firm response from them, and a great many emails. I was initially quoted the same as Bob for shipping, which I felt was far to good a price to be true. When I persisted in making sure that they were certain about the cost of shipping, I felt like I was getting the brush off, and assured that it would be no problem, even though I new that there was going to be a problem from some info that Bob had passed on to me. In my book that's not good business. This left a pretty sour taste in my mouth. I will never use them just based on their less than forthrightness.

Cedar Creek were very prompt with responses to my inquires, as well as quoting a realistic price for shipping. They gave me a ball park price fro USPS to Australia, and I was pleasantly surprised that actual cost was $20 less. Having not seen an Ameritage case I can't comment on the quality as compared to the Cedar Creek, but if you can't get them to Australia without it costing a fortune in shipping, then the point is moot. The Cedar Creek case is certainly a much better case than is available locally, and as Bob has said, if it's not a Dread, then the local suppliers don't want to know about it.

Just my 2 cents. Rant over

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Allen R. McFarlen
Barron River Guitars & Ukuleles
Facebook
Cairns, Australia

I did enquire about an Ameritage case, but decided against for the same reason as our Aussie friends. The standard case for UK custom builders is the Hiscox, with upgrades being to Calton. I buy Hiscox cases to keep my guitars in, I get mine from Roy Courtnall, the 'Making Master Guitars' chap, who is a pleasure to deal with as are the technical guys at Hiscox, and I get one Calton for each body shape. We also have Kingham cases, also through Roy, that will build you a one off case of any shape for any instrument, they make my lute cases. So with three home grown alternatives buying in cases from the US is not really an alternative for us.

Shipping is becoming an even more significant cost of getting any stuff from the US.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

We are lucky to have Hiscox cases here in the UK - fabulous cases and great prices from Standard to top of the range. Bryn Hiscox was a guitar maker who was fed up with the shoddy cases available to him and after an instrument of his got destroyed researched about making his own cases - the rest is history. This video from his website is very interesting and he covers all of the things a good case has to do - a lot more than just crush resistance. It was quite an eye opener to me and y'all may find it interesting too.

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Hiscox has recently established a web presence in the US. Do they custom pad their cases for various size variations? I do not know if they have a wholesale presence here yet.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Waddy,

If you watch the video, Bryn goes through how the cases are made. The interior appears to be an integral part of the whole case support system and so a different mould is used to make the different case shapes and sizes - rather than having one or two shapes that are padded out to fit different instruments.

The only downside for me is that Bryn doesn't do custom and one-offs - as I suspect each one needs a new mould made. I really wish he did a Weissenborn case.

The Hiscox website shows only one US supplier.

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Dave, Kingham will always make you a one off case for the Weiss or your Harp/double neck guitars. Roy Courtnall is an agent for them as well. They may be a bit expensive though .

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

I started this post to say I'm very pleased with Ameritage cases!
I had NO problems with getting a price quote !
Nancy is great to deal with!
They shipped within 3 days!
I know we all have had different experiences with suppliers ,be it wood ,tuners or anything we need to make our guitars!
I've sent back wood,tuners & cases !!!!!(over 30 years of dealing with this)
All of the O.L.F. underwriters have been great to deal with-NO send backs!!

Shipping overseas is a disaster zone !
The last 2 years the prices have gone up! UP !

Their cases are VERY well made !
Come with nice features!!
The prices for us makers is great for such a quality product!!

That was all!

Mike

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Mike Collins

I concur, shipping is a very significant part of me buying stuff even in the US. Shipping a guitar even cross country has gone up considerably as well. I just shipped a guitar to Sweden and it was very rough plus I recently lost a commission in Slovenia due to the shipping costs.
Sorry about the deviation from the subject at hand so, I use both Ameritage cases for my more modern guitars and Cedar Creek cases for my vintage style guitars. I like them both and am please with the products. I would like to have better service (read faster turn around) but when I consider that I am sometimes ordering to get ready for a show or something, I understand that they are very busy with other customers too and they have never caused me to be late with an order or to bring a guitar to a show without a case. Ameritage even emailed me to say that they had a bulk shipment headed to California and if I needed to place an order they could save me money on shipping. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take advantage at the time.

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

Thank you John !

How is the guitar making business for you?

That should be another post!!!!!!!!!!


Mike

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Mike Collins

Yes, that has mostly been my experience as well. The one time I did have a problem the moved heaven and earth to help resolve it and everything worked out great.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com