Tuesday, October 20, 2009

A real travel guitar

So I'm heading off to a conference this week. I'll meet up with some friends who play guitar, and mentioned that I should bring one of the ones I built.

I hate to check in bags, especially for a three-day trip. Doubly so for guitars, which airlines have a great track-record in destroying. Add in the wonderful $25-each-way fee for checking in a bag, and I don't really want to take one of my hand-built guitars with me.

Since all of my guitars have bolt-on necks, I thought maybe I could dis-assemble one and take it as a carry on.

Two problems. 1) the last leg of this trip is on a tiny Saab turbo-prop, which has smaller than normal carry on limitations, and 2) I would not have enough room for clothes, my laptop, and other such necessities.

Well, not so much as problems, but engineering challenges. The obvious solution is to build a guitar that 1) sounds good, 2) plays good, 3) can be collapsed down to carry-on size without requiring tools, and 4) has a removable back so that I can shove my clothes and stuff INSIDE the guitar....

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.