What to do with all the guitars?

  • Thread starter Thread starter rpe
  • Start date Start date
rpe

rpe

NM - Land of Excrement
My guitar collection is by no means vintage or collectable or even very valuable but I'm sure you guys do have collections that need to be safeguarded somehow. What do you do with all your guitars when you have to be away from home (studio) for a while. Lock them up in some kind of vault or safe or hide them or what? Also if you have many guitars do you display them or keep them in the cases in the closet? I usually have two guitars out on stands at a time and the other three are in their cases in the closet.

Just wondering.

rpe
 
Mornin rpe,
I do exactly like you. I've got a Yamaha acoustic, an old Tele, a Squire bass, a 3/4 size fiddle, an I don't know what mandolin and a piano that are always out (I'm too lazy to go lookin for stuff when I want to noodle). My LP and J-45 are in there cases waiting for "special occasions" ;)
For security, I've got a dog that sounds twice as big as she is. Good girl :p
Bill
 
I keep my acoustics cased whenever they aren't being played. My electrics and electric bass sit in a stand ready for action all the time.

A
www.aaroncheney.com
 
I made a guitar cabinet to store my precious axes.

I actually bought a wardrobe cabinet from IKEA that you put together yourself, then customized the interior to make it a guitar cabinet. It holds 4 electrics, 2 basses, and 1 Jumbo acoustic. Depending on what you own, it can be made to hold up to 8 electric guitars or a lesser combination of various guitars. I put some home-made humidifiers in there and a hygrometer to monitor humidity, which seems to fluctuate between 58% in the winter and 68% in the summer.

Now, when I want to jam or record, I simply open the doors and pull out the guitar I want to play. The main reason I built it, though, was to keep my two little boys (ages 3 and 10 months, respectively) from destroying my guitars. The cabinet looks really nice, too! The total spent on the cabinet, materials, hygrometer, etc. was under $200, and it took two days to build.

I'll post some pics if the wife will let me use her digital camera. ;)
 
Buck62 said:
I made a guitar cabinet to store my precious axes.

I actually bought a wardrobe cabinet from IKEA that you put together yourself, then customized the interior to make it a guitar cabinet. It holds 4 electrics, 2 basses, and 1 Jumbo acoustic. Depending on what you own, it can be made to hold up to 8 electric guitars or a lesser combination of various guitars. I put some home-made humidifiers in there and a hygrometer to monitor humidity, which seems to fluctuate between 58% in the winter and 68% in the summer.

Now, when I want to jam or record, I simply open the doors and pull out the guitar I want to play. The main reason I built it, though, was to keep my two little boys (ages 3 and 10 months, respectively) from destroying my guitars. The cabinet looks really nice, too! The total spent on the cabinet, materials, hygrometer, etc. was under $200, and it took two days to build.

I'll post some pics if the wife will let me use her digital camera. ;)
Click to expand...

Sounds cool! I would love to see pix of it, if possible. What kind of dimensions is the cabinet?

Warning about keeping guitars out all the time: I kept my strat out on a stand for several years. It was way more conducive to playing than having to take them out of the case all the time. Then I had to perform a repair on it and removed the pickguard. I couldn't believe the difference between the color of the finish under the pickguard and the exposed finish. Those years of exposure to UV rays coming through the window had really faded the finish, although I hadn't realized it was happening.

The weird thing was that no sunshine had been shining thru the windows...they were on the north side of the house. I didn't have any blinds on the windows, so reflected & refracted sunlight made it's way in.
 
Buck62,

did you custom-make your guitar hangers, or are they an off-the-shelf item?
 
jfrog said:
Then I had to perform a repair on it and removed the pickguard. I couldn't believe the difference between the color of the finish under the pickguard and the exposed finish. Those years of exposure to UV rays coming through the window had really faded the finish, although I hadn't realized it was happening.
Click to expand...


This happens to some degree even if you keep it in the case. It is not a big deal, unless you have a pristine old sunburst. Most of those are already seriously faded, so if you have one which is not, people actually care.

Myself, I have about 15 guitars or so, and I keep them all hanging on the wall. Partially this is because it is conductive to playing, partially because I like them as decoration (they look cool), and partially it is because I do not have cases for them all (the cobblers children never have shoes and all). All of my guitars where made by me or my father (mostly me, early instruments which I did not feel were up to the standards I want on instruments I sell). We have a humidifier on our furnace which can, during the winter, if I push it, keep the house at a relative humidity of about 35%, which is not near enough. The room with the guitars has another humidifier which puts out about 20 gallons a day, during the really dry parts of the year, which barely keeps the humidity in the acceptable range of 45%-55%. And only if I change the filters about twice as often as they recommend. I check my two hygrometers every day during the winter. During the summer, at least if you don't live in a desert, humidity is not an issue. Basically, you need to worry about humidity only if you live in the desert, or you are heating your house. Up here in Minnesota, the humidity inside of an unhumidified house, during the winter, gets dryer than Death Valley. Not a good thing, at all.

Aside from issues of humidity, the only real major concern for storing guitars is heat. If they get too hot, the glue can soften and start to creep. By too hot, I mean anything over about 105 degrees farenheight. It doesn't really start to loosen until somewhere between 110 and 115, but why risk it. By the way, your car easily gets that hot, in about 15 minutes, in the summer, if left sitting in the sun.

For long term storage of your guitars, what we recommend is that you completely loosen the strings, and keep them in the cases. Loosening the strings relieves a lot of tension, which is just a good idea anyway, and if the guitar gets too hot, this will help keep the glue joints from loosening.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
I'm quite innovative in my approach. I use one guitar to prop up the low end of the couch when I'm not playing it, another one fell behind the refrigerator a couple of weeks ago and I haven't been able to reach it, and the third one I prop up under the back door knob so no one can get in while I'm not home. In fact, with the exception of the last one, you wouldn't be able to tell I even had any guitars except for the amps, the cables, and the guitar picks strewn randomly about the apartment.
 
I like the idea of a cabinet, my wife would too, if it meant me being tidy.
As for security I rely on dead bolts and as an extra we have 2 dogs, one belongs to my son and is nicknamed "The Hound from Hell", it is part dingo and will have a go at anything and anyone it can, it's a bit of a menace actually. The other one is mine and is a wimp but has a good bark
 
I have a bunch of them on the wall and a bunch in stands on the floor because I like looking at 'em. My living room looks like a small guitar shop. Some extra ones are in cases in my closet and under the bed cause there's no more room for them.

Anyway all of my music stuff is fully insured.
 
Bit similar to Shackadelica - I left my bass in the saucepan (after I put it there to boil the strings). No problem with humidity. Prevents the woman making her ghastly stirfries.
 
ive got 5 guitars. i live in my parents basement, so, i have a huge bedroom and my own living room down there. and its a full finished basement. so its not a murky moldy dungeon. but in my 'living room' i have my couch and tv and gaming stuff. and my guitars all on stands. this isnt too bad, because my doors to the outside lock, and no one ever goes down there anyways.


besides, they look too cool to keep locked up. it really adds to the rooms :)




freak
 
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