Prototype Lifton Case
For my first case, I took a soprano ukulele case and modified it to accommodate the thinner, shorter Less Tall model. Although functionally this worked out well, I wasn't pleased with how it looked. So I was determined, as a follow-up to the Less Tall guitar, to build a case worthy of its heritage.
I decided to make a Lifton style case, and to make it look as close to a vintage '59 case as I could…especially without having a real '59 case to use as a reference. I did, however, have plenty of reissue cases, and was able to find plenty of photos of vintage cases to use as a guide. What I couldn't find much of, was information on how best to construct a guitar case. It seems there is quite a bit of information out there on building guitars, but very little on building cases for them. So I decided to build a prototype, using two different methods.
I made the bottom of the case out of wood and plywood. I'm guessing that this is the more traditional way to make a guitar case. I used a wood bending iron to form the sides of the case bottom, similar to how one would make a hollow body guitar.
Because of the contours required, I decided to make the top of the guitar case out of fiberglass. I had had previous experience working with fiberglass from my days repairing and restoring old Corvettes. I first made a mockup of the case top out of wood and plaster and then made a silicone mold of this mockup. I was then able to lay up the fiberglass (and resin) into the mold to form the rough case top. The only disadvantage of using different methods for the construction of the case top and bottom is that the fiberglass top ended up being heavier than the wooden bottom. So when the empty case is opened, the case wants to fall over on its top. Oh well, that's why it's a prototype. In subsequent cases, I'll likely use fiberglass for both the top and bottom to avoid this problem.
For the case cover, I found book binding material that closely resembled the color of an original Lifton case. I had read that book binding material was often used for older guitar cases, and quite frankly, I wasn't finding any other material that was a good fit for what I needed. For the darker brown design on the exterior of the case, I first photographed one of my reissue cases and began playing around with the photos on Photoshop. I was able to pick out a repeating pattern, and was able to isolate and print this pattern. With an Xacto knife I cut out as much of the detail of the pattern as I could to form a stencil. I was then able to use this stencil, along with a sponge, to sponge paint the repeating pattern on the case exterior.
The case hardware, as with the guitar hardware, presented some additional challenges. There are no latches commercially available that are half-size equivalents of those used on full-sized Lifton style cases. I was, however, able to find some small latches whose latching mechanisms were close to what I needed. Having these, I was able to make new back plates for them, so the resulting latches looked very close to mini originals. I was able to construct the case handle out of leather, while the rest of the case hardware I crafted out of brass.
For the case interior, I had to search far and wide for a material that was a close match to that of an original Lifton style case. After an exhaustive on-line search that yielded very little, I finally found a good match at a small fabric store in the Chinatown section of Boston. As with many phases of this Less Tall project, finding the right material was 95% of the battle, and the actual construction of the interior made up the other 5%.
Below are some photos of the case, along with some detailed photos of the hardware.
