Space blankets

[Bruce McC]

Was thinking of using a space blanket to provide thermal protection
for guitar and case when travelling with a guitar in the car.
Would appreciate members' thoughts and comments.

[kiwigeo]

**** the space blanket. Just lash the case on top of the car and take advantage of the natural cooling effect of the air stream rushing over the top of the vehicle as you hurtle down the freeway at 110km/hr.

I consider falling off the top of a car at 110km/hr as normal wear and tear for my guitars. If your guitar ends up in a million pieces on the Calder Freeway then it suggests to me your bracing is on the light side.

[ozziebluesman]

I don't think there would be any big issues taking the guitar with you in the car if your careful. Don't leave it in the boot for an extended amount of time and keep it out of direct sunlight in the vehicle. Most of the repairs to acoustic guitars up herein the north are because people have left their guitar in the boot of a the car during the wet season here for extended periods of time.

My guitar students sometimes have tuning issues with their guitars after travelling to a lesson for twenty minutes in the car with the guitar and case beside them on the passenger side of the car where the vehicles air conditioner outlet is. So when they get to their lesson and the temperature is 32 degrees outside, 70% humidity and although my studio is air conditioned it is I kept it at 25 degrees and after an arctic blast in their guitar will have gone up in pitch but it usually settles down after tens minutes or so. Set neck guitars are affected big time.

When I used to drive down to Byron Bay for the Blues Fest I liked to take my old 1940s Oahu slide guitar with me so all I did was kept it out of the sun and never had an issue. I think a thermal blanket would be effective if the guitar was going on a long trip.

Hope that's helps Bruce!

Cheers

Alan

[Kim]

Regardless of the outside temp, while the car is moving along heat damage is no problem really as the air flow prevents the temp from building into the disaster zone. Leave the guitar in the car while its parked in the sun on a hot day for 20min and I don't think a space blanket will help for long and once that glue softens a bit and the braces creep under tension then its all over. One thing that will give you a bit more of a buffer against damage in the hot zone is to use hot hide glue. It has a greater heat threshold than PVA derived glues and even if it does succumb, chances are that the braces will go entirely. This is a good thing because not only does the damage become obvious even to the unobservant meaning there is a chance it can be attended to before any of the wood starts to crack, but sometimes if your lucky, it can be repaired without removing the top.

This is not generally the case for those guitars glued with PVA's because they most often creep, and at a lower temperature than HHG will catastrophically fail, to rebond again when things cool a bit only with the braces/neck block etc all in a slightly different location (you can see this movement has taken place on an affected instrument by the tell-tail footprints of where things use to be a few mm forward) to where they use to be. A guitar affected this way sounds like its made of cardboard, but worse still is that the owner does not twig to what has happened. Sure it does not sound as good as it did, and the action is much higher than it was, but if they don't know about hot car syndrome, and chances are they wouldn't if they left it in the car to be damaged in the first place, then they fob off the symptoms with old strings and movement of the action they had seen before..only this time its worse and it does not go back.

The problem is that leaving a guitar strung up in this condition will eventually result in sequential damage. With the braces and neck block moved back, the neck angle has changed. This not only results in a higher playing action but also causes a greater load to be applied to the guitar, especially at the neck joint which becomes a kind of fulcrum..This can cause more movemnt and resulting in the guitar going out of tune by flattening of pitch as the scale decreases. The player will respond by cranking up tension to bring things back up to pitch, etc, etc, until the instrument becomes unplayable and is put away, generally with strings still near pitch so the guitar continues to deform under someone's bed.

Far more potential for repair had that same guitar had it's braces fall off and rattle around on day one because I've seen them with deformed bindings at the neck joint where the neck block has slid back, splits in the soundboard either side of the fretboard where the neck extension has moved back deforming either side of the rose etc, etc, but having said that, sometimes damage can just be something as simple as an almost impossible to locate loose brace which only rattles at certain times. Now tracing one of them down can drive you nuts and from a repair point they can be the worst because hours on 'just a little rattle' can be much harder to charge for than hours on a retop.

Cheers

Kim

[Bruce McC]

Thanks for the helpful comments, particularly yours Martin
re"xxxx the space blanket", should I cut a hole in it first?

[charangohabsburg]

A space blanket only reflects heat radiation but does not protect at all from conduction of heat and heat flow. So, unless you let the guitar exposed to direct sun in an otherwise not too hot environment a space blanket is pretty pointless. But of course, a good application would be the protection of the guitar case strapped to the car top while you don't reach the minimum speed recommended by Martin.

**** the space blanket.

Could you provide us a tutorial on this please?

[ozziebluesman]

Don't quote me on this fact but I remember reading somewhere and I think it was about SRV or another blues guitar great were on their way to a gig with a Fender guitar and case strapped to a roof rack and the guitar come to grief, The story went on to say that when they reached the gig and pulled the guitar out of the case Steve was pissed off cause the B string was out of tune a little

We all seen when Jimi tried to kill a strat on stage at a gig but found it was made of pretty good stuff!!!!

Cheers

Alan

[Taffy Evans]

Hi Alan, that blues great my have been me, . Back in the mid 1960's I drove from Melbourne to Alice Springs with my Levin steel string tied to the top of my Morris Mini 850's home made roof rack. The trip took 10 days as the road from Pt Augusta to Alice was dirt and closed in places due to rain. I did not have any problems with the guitar and I played it for years after that. I had built the shaped hard case myself before leaving the UK, but I think I was just lucky. Oh! it could not have been me [the blues great] as it was my G string that was out of tune.

I have carried hundreds of guitars over the years many in the boot of the car, [but never left there] what I used to do is to drop the backs of the rear seats forward a bit and crank up and redirect the air conditioning, I also have a special blanket that is woven in a way that gives lots of air spaces in the weave and on top of that I put a couple of those shiny fold up windscreen screens. I also have the darkest window tint I can get away with legally.

[kiwigeo]

Thanks for the helpful comments, particularly yours Martin
re"xxxx the space blanket", should I cut a hole in it first?

Whadaya think the Apollo Astronauts did? I mean what sort of man can survive a couple of weeks cooped up in a capsule with two other blokes. Eventually even the toughest Astronaut is forced to give in and resort to little "wankie with the blankie"