A hit Youtube video in the summer of 2009 tells the tale of a guitar damaged by airline baggage handlers:
How can you avoid this yourself?
We have some standard recommendations for our students who travel to San Miguel de Allende with their
guitars, or who travel home with a new guitar that they have bought here or in Paracho.
The professional musicians of the video above may conceivably have been too hurried by their touring schedule to have taken the time
to properly prepare their guitars for traveling. Loosening the strings is difficult for a touring musician to justify, because the
guitar has to be ready to play at the evening show; all the same, this is essential to prevent the neck damage portrayed in the video.
The carelessness of baggage handlers is legendary, and this is not likely to change. While some may be conscientious, the ones who aren't
are the ones to watch out for.
There are two types of damage which are most common: the neck being broken, and the endpin being pushed through.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that crushing due to failure of the sides of the case is fairly rare, but of course it's possible.
Recommendations:
These are somewhat time-consuming procedures that frequent travelers may be tempted to forgo.
Certainly, with merely normal carefulness by baggage handlers, a guitar would survive without these precautions.
But you can't count on normal carefulness 100 percent, and if you are the one percent whose guitar is broken,
it's an expensive and distressing experience.
Remove the end pin if your guitar has one. If you can't manage this for lack of small hand tools, then try to
pad the end of the guitar around the end pin so that a blow to the butt end of the guitar - a very likely event -
won't drive the pin through the body.
Loosen the strings. This is critical. The strings, when tuned to pitch, put a force on the neck like hanging
a hundred-pound weight from the guitar. Add to this the force of a severe blow, and you have a disaster. Loosen the
strings, though, and you allow the guitar's own design strength to work to theoretically withstand a hundred-pound blow
that might otherwise break the neck.
Pad the guitar inside the case with your extra underwear, socks, or other clothing, to prevent movement and
provide additional cushioning. In particular, pad the neck and headstock.
Buy a good case. Cardboard cases obviously don't cut it. Most hard-shell wooden cases are made
from 1/8th-inch-thick plywood, which seems pretty thin, but actually these cases perform pretty well. Lots of more
expensive cases are available; buy something proportionate to the value of your guitar.
Carry it on: Don't check the guitar at the baggage check unless the airline personnel absolutely insist.
Carry it to the loading gate, and hang onto it for dear life. When they pry it from your hands at that point,
they call it "gate-checking", which means that some airline employee will carry it out and put it in the baggage compartment.
In the best possible case, you will be allowed to carry it on and stow it in the coat closet just behind the first-class cabin.
Consider traveling with a cheap guitar. Why take the risk if you can avoid it? We always keep
"designated beach guitars" for situations where we don't want to risk our finer instruments.
Dryness, moisture and temperature extremes are hazardous to your guitar. The hazards and recommended procedures are detailed below.
Recommendations:
Heat: Most fine guitars are assembled with hide glue, which melts at around 140 degrees Fahrenheit.
Leave your guitar in the car in the sun, and it may spontaneously revert to a collection of wooden parts.
Also, the neck may warp,and the body may crack. DON'T leave the guitar in a car in the sun, even while you
just "pop in somewhere for five minutes". We've seen guitars damaged just like that. Also, watch out for heating ducts
and radiators in the wintertime.
Cold: Cold is less disastrous than heat, but freezing temperatures can "craze" the finish on your guitar.
This is only a cosmetic issue, but it will reduce the resale value at the very least.
Dryness: When the relative humidity is under about 35 percent, your guitar will dry out.
The dangers are that the top will warp or the bridge will loosen and come off. Also, the neck may warp,
and the neck may also shrink so that the ends of the frets will stick out. Solution: put a moist sponge
in a plastic baggie, poke some small holes in the baggie, put it inside the soundhole, and keep the guitar
in its case. If the sponge gets dry, it will rattle inside the guitar and you should re-moisten it. We keep a
hygrometer
on the desk at home; when traveling we watch the sponges. We had the bridge of a guitar
fly off once after a trip to the desert, before we learned the sponge routine; at that time we were using
a commercial humidification device from a music store. When in doubt, keep another sponge-in-a-baggie
in the guitar case near the headstock.
Moisture: Uh, don't leave the guitar out in the rain... :) but seriously, high humidity may warp the guitar,
weaken the glue, and cause the tuning pegs to stick. Keep the guitar in a dry part of the house when the weather is damp.
Get some silica gel to keep in the guitar case, and dry the silica gel in the oven as necessary.
When in an airport or bus station, watch the guitar carefully. If you are napping, tie it to your body. An un-attended guitar can disappear
in the wink of an eye.
Put some kind of ID tag inside the guitar, glued to the underside of the top where it is not visible except with a mirror,
to aid in possible identification in the event that you recover a stolen instrument.
Don't ever leave the guitar in an un-attended car. Leave all the rest of your gear if you must (covered with a blanket or whatever),
but for heaven's sake take your guitar with you. No car is secure enough, and there's the heat issue, too.
