As some of you may have read in my previous postings, I’m in a wheelchair, so travelling with guitars, even the GS Mini, is a little cumbersome. I ended up not taking an instrument on some of my vacations, especially the short ones, yet I always regretted it. After freeing up some funds by selling a Relic Strat I had on my wall that was never played, I came across the Furch Little Jane and was extremely interested. Out of every full-sized travel guitar I researched, the Little Jane packs up the smallest, no contest.
When I first received it, it was way too slinky and anemic sounding because he put extra lights on it. After restringing with lights and installing a D’Addario NS Micro Tuner, I realized he strung with extra lights because of the action. It was extremely high and very hard to play. I wonder if Furch set this one up incorrectly with a poorly adjusted saddle, or if it’s because the neck sits extremely straight in the latching mechanism, but this was unacceptable to me. Michael Bashkin came to the rescue, once again. He added a very thin wood shim at the base of the latch cutout to raise the base of the neck slightly. Paired with a slight adjustment to the saddle, the action was much better and finally comfortable to play.
I’ve been playing the guitar for 2 weeks now and wow, what an instrument. My old Maton EBG808TE lives at my Aunt and Uncle’s place, and this Little Jane parlor is much louder; it’s actually pretty amazing. The guitar is pretty neck heavy because of the metal and latching mechanism, so it will start tipping when you lift off the neck for harmonics and stuff like that. There is a strap pin at the bottom of the lower bout, but nothing else. I’ll experiment with a headstock strap eventually.
The guitar comes packed in a padded backpack that has ample pocket space.
I was able to fit all my electronics, chargers, etc for my vacation. If you have a smaller computer, you’d be able to fit it in the larger pocket. If it was a really short trip, I think I could squeeze enough clothing in the bag as well.
When you open the bag, you’ll find the body in one compartment and the headstock/nut/fret 0/most of fret 1 stored in another that is lined by nylon so the cut strings at the top of the locking tuners don’t rip holes in the bag. The strings slot through holes in the nut instead of sitting on top and attach with locking tuners.
There’s a rubber lined cutout in the upper bout and a second one in the body of the guitar where the neck stores for travel. Once you remove the neck, you slot in the headstock and then attach it to the body. To attach it you place the completed neck at a sharp angle into the base of the cutout, then lift the body latch and attach the lip to the metal cutout on the neck. Finally, you pull back on the latch and complete the guitar.
You’ll hear open notes as the strings are pulled to tension which is a little scary the first few times, but this thing is rock solid stable. I’ve disconnected and reattached the neck about 20 times now to keep everything humidified in the bag at night, and nothing has come loose. The bridge pins remain seated and the strings sit nicely. Not sure if the life of the strings will decrease from the constant tension changes, but all’s well at this point.
Overall, this thing is amazing. Other than bar chords at the first fret being a little weird, maybe due to the fret 0 and the attachment point, and the somewhat wide 45mm nut, I love this guitar. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants an actual full-sized wood parlor that packs up extremely small and has an unbelievably loud sound.