Fixing a broken case handle
My handle broke suddenly as I was carrying my bass viol up a flight of stairs. The case slipped out of my hands and clattered alarmingly noisily down the steps. Thankfully, the instrument was undamaged.
For over six months I existed with a bodged-up handle made from a webbing strap bought at Bunnings, which I twisted and tied up in a vague imitation of a handle. (It did have the advantage of being bright orange, which gave my case some excellent visibility!)
However, online searching led me to these replacement handles from an American firm called Brettun’s Village, a ‘Leather Supplies and Trunk Shop’ in Lewiston, Maine. For those of you hazy about American geography, Maine is the most north-easterly of all the ‘lower 48’ states, and a good two thirds of it is in fact further north than most of the Canadian border. They sell these ‘steel reinforced replacement handles’:
Try as I might, I couldn’t find anything comparable in Australia. So I bought two. The total cost, including shipping to Melbourne, came to $117.53. The order took about a month to arrive.
Fitting the handle to my case was not easy; the ‘D rings’ that are attached to the case, and through which the handle passes were too small to push the ends of the handles through in their bent shape as shown in the picture. I could put one end on easily, but not the other. Finally, with much straining and heavy breathing (brute strength I have not) I straightened out an end with some pliers (the metal you see is steel), pushed it through, and then bent it back.
I think the result is excellent:
There you go. Case fixing 101!
— Alasdair McAndrew