This is not a post about a build of some kind, but more of a research/question. So no build photos right now, but if you have some input I would be happy to read it :)

After having to do some flying the past days and my soft/fabric suitcase breaking apart I looked into getting a replacement. What I need is a large suitcase for checked luggage. Not some crazy odd or large shape, but a decent suitcase for (multi) week traveling. I love the old Aluminium rimowa cases, but they are super pricey and I also heard quality is not what it used to be. So I thought: Maybe I can build an Aluminium case myself? Surprisingly I can’t find too much online about selfmade suitcases. Does anyone have experience/resources regarding this? Are there regulations (other than size) I would have to follow?

Zarges (alu crates) is quite the name around here, and my first naive thought was: Rivet some wheels and a handle to that thing and you have a nice case. Of course I would want to go a little further here, but do you think that would be somewhat feasible?

Thanks for reading and I am happy for any feedback :)

  • Barbecue Cowboy@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    3·
    21 days ago

    This is one of those things where the likely reason you don’t see a lot of entries as far as DIY goes is that the expense of creating the tooling required to make specific pieces properly is so high that it doesn’t make sense unless you’re going to create a lot of them.

    I’m not an expert at aluminum machining at all, but I have commissioned some very small custom pieces. From what little I have had done, I’d expect replicating the pieces for something equivalent to that to be very expensive and unless you’re very lucky, you’ll probably have to make at least a few pieces more than once to account for tolerances/etc.

    • Badabinski@kbin.earth
      2·
      21 days ago

      Honestly, I don’t think the tooling would be too terrible. Ron Covell has been making crazy shit out of sheet metal using nothing but hammers and simple wooden forms for many years, and I think it might be possible for OP to do the same. Granted, it would be hideously time consuming and would require great skill, but I think it’d be doable.