Quote:
Originally Posted by Aspiring
I have a new gen x7 and a Klos travel guitar and a Furch Little Jane.
Also a BlackBird El Capitan.
I take my guitars travelling and sometimes just down to my boat to hang out and play as well as up in my camper van to go skiing and overnight.
They all have different things that they do better. The Furch sets up and takes down very quickly and is the easiest to transport and the small backpack is easy to store / and pack. It also sounds great. Better than the klos to my ear but not quite up there with the x7.
The BlackBird sounds the best of the lot and I don't worry about it in the elements but is also very large so is much more of a pain to take a long and takes up too much space in either the boat or the camper most of the time. It is also a lot harder to play it inside the boat or camper just due to the physical size differences.
The baby Klos is great robust and worry free. The nut / string spacing is smaller than my preference but for some reason is still ridiculously easy to play. But the neck detach mechanism is slow relatively and so I usually do not take it apart to store or transport and as a result it takes up more storage space than the Furch. I will take it occasionally for plane travel as I can stuff it in my knapsack and stuff it full of clothes etc with no worries.
I will never take the Furch skiing due the rapid temperature changes. The Klos usually gets the nod there.
The x7 is great and what I usually take to my guitar lessons and will occasionally go to my boat but it takes up considerably more space in the cabin.
I do think that the full-size Klos in the price range you are looking at might be an interesting option and I think the hybrid would likely be robust enough for your needs.
The journey mentioned is another interesting option. The neck detach / reattach is similar to the Furch for speed so keeping it folded is a reasonable option.
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Thank you. This is useful and applicable to our situation. We heavily modified a Mercedes Sprinter 3500 based motorhome built by Winnebago for this trip to South America. We have no AC, or need it, and control temp by selecting appropriate altitude. But there are times on the coats when it's hot and humid, bla bla. We live in Tampa, FL so nothing new.
We removed the bed in the overcab and there is plenty of room for guitars in that space, yet we have more space then weight capacity, so want to remain light weight. Playing inside the vehicle is cramped, but possible with a small body.
At first, we were going to get a cheap plywood OO sized guitar (bulletproof for a wood body), then get our luthier to beat it into submission with upgraded components to achieve decent action, then hope for the best. The information by others about using plastic bags is new to me and very appreciated. I may take my Taylor GS Mini and bag it. At the end of the trip, we'll probably end up tossing whatever we took, but a carbon would likely survive.
Now that "carbon" is under consideration,
we have to decide if a removable neck is essential. If yes, it will be because we plan "excursions" outside the campervan, such as to the Galápagos Islands or Antarctica, etc., involving ships and/or planes, etc.
We're looking 6-7 guitars with and without removable necks. Looking at carbon with zero knowledge of CF is a typical blizzard of facts and varied opinions. Our small body size imposes a hard constraints that we can't ignore, mostly with the "reach" of the guitar and neck profile. Most manufacturer's don't publish the dimensions of their guitar necks, which is asinine in our opinions. Typically, we have to beat the profiles out of them. Some wood manufactures are ashamed that they can't seem to produce the same sized neck each run, so they don't like using numbers to describe their profiles. But since CF is a mold, it should be consistent, I "guess".
Busting out a $2,000 instrument around the campfire in South America is ill advised for a variety of reasons, so we're looking to remain under $1,500, which will likely put us into a production or used guitar, rather than custom. If a guitar is lost, destroyed or stolen, replacements are unlikely without returning to the United States. Hence, I hope to get it right.