Re: Flight cases
Very true, and sometimes even new ones can be pretty close to the parts price of building your own.
For any standard item that is commonly found on the market like racks, this is a pretty good rule of thumb.
However, when it came time to find a case for my console (that I was not smart enough to find a used one with a case), that turned out to be a nightmare, and there were no used ones to be found, plus the new ones were all custom and cost damn near as much as the item they were going to be enclosing. So I bought a bunch of parts from Penn-Elcom and built it myself for about $225. It's got all the same furniture (latches, corners, etc.) as factory-built cases, and is covered in the same laminate. Even the rivets are OEM-correct. There is no precision woodworking involved, as the fine joinery is accomplished by the aluminum valances; and there is no wood finishing either, because the plywood is covered on both sides (laminate on the outside, padding and fabric on the interior). You will become an expert riveter by the time you are done.
On the other hand, you could simply buy a rack-mixer (like a MixWizard, etc.) and get a standard case for that for about 200 bucks.
