| Articles:
Guitar Maintenance: Travelling with your guitar |
Do you ever have to travel with your guitar
by plane or car? Maybe even ship it on ahead with a transport company? If so, you need to
take a few specific precautions to ensure you have a guitar by the end of the journey.
General Precautions
- Get a case - Should go without saying, but it never ceases to amaze me
how many people will spend thousands of Rands on their instrument, only to buy a cheap
padded bag to protect it in. Get as good a case as you can afford. Moulded cases are good
for most applications, but if you plan on allowing others to transport your instrument - a
heavy duty flight-case is better.
Pack the case properly - Make sure
there is no movement, particularly at the headstock. Pack material in any spaces between
the guitar and the sides of the case. Wad up some material and place it under the
headstock - enough to lift the neck 5mm off the neck rest.
Do not loosen the strings - The string tension balances the stress of
the weight of the machine heads and neck along the length of the body, so your guitar is
at more risk with the strings loose.
Fragile stickers - If someone else will be handling your guitar at any
point, do not assume they will know that it needs a special care.
Mark it - Put stickers on with your name, address and telephone
numbers.
By Car
- Never put your guitar in the boot of your car
- Temperatures inside may exceed 65° C which will cause tremendous damage to your guitar.
- Secure It - If you keep the guitar on the
back seat, make sure it is unable to fly forward in an accident (which, aside from being a
tad dangerous for your guitar, can kill you).
- Acclimatisation - When bringing the guitar
in from a cold car to a warm room (and vice-versa), let it warm up for an hour or so
before opening the case. This will prevent tiny cracks from developing in the finish.
Shipping
- Cardboard box - Ask a guitar store for a
cardboard shipping box. Find the best one you can. As with the case - use padding material
to ensure your case does not move around inside the box.
- Strap the box closed - At the very least use
some packing tape.
- Insure it - for the full replacement value.
Air Travel
- Carry your guitar on as hand luggage - Even
if this means your bag with toothbrush and underpants has to go in the baggage hold.
This is your single biggest precaution because apart from
outright damage to the instrument, there is always the possibility of loss, theft, and
delay when the guitar is allowed to go through normal baggage handling.
However, some airlines can be problematic about allowing you
to carry on your guitar because of size or more recently, security concerns.
Someone with an electric in a gig bag might not have a problem walking onto the plane, but
large guitar in it's case may well exceed the carry-on size limit.
Use a molded, lightweight case, made by companies like SKB or
Hiscox work best as a carry-on. These cases are the smallest and the lightest hard cases
you can get. The case hardware should be the "cam-lock" type that is difficult
to accidentally unlatch. While a heavy duty flight case is preferable if you are forced to
put the guitar in the cargo hold, a good fitting moulded case will provide enough
protection. |
