Snakes with a plane

camf

Damn! BA have made me check my guitar in. They’ve made all sorts of claims that it will be gently taken onto the plane on the backs of carefully selected and trained eider ducks. Despite this, I’m sitting in departures feeling slightly anxious. J45 in a standard Hiscox... what could go wrong. Relieved I renewed insurance earlier this week. Ah well, if it all goes wrong, I can drown my sorrows at the Neil Young/Bob Dylan show later.

ICBM

I thought you were taking the Bourgeois? Although I have to say I think that not doing was a wise decision!

Hopefully it will be fine, but if it isn’t then a J45 is more replaceable - even a nice one...

tony99

it'll be fine, if I was a guitar I'd rather travel in a hiscox than first class, please don't worry

camf

Cheers guys! You are both right on all counts. I really wanted to take the Bourgeois as it’s playing like a dream since @ICBM fixed it up, but that would have been just too stressful. (And much harder to replace). 

camf

I asked at the desk and, of course, they confirmed that it would have been no problem if I’d just checked it in at the gate. I’ll know better on the way back and I’ll try just to head directly to the gate with it. 

ICBM

camf said:

I really wanted to take the Bourgeois as it’s playing like a dream since @ICBM fixed it up

If anyone is interested, this involved resetting the neck slightly - and I am not a luthier, and don't do that sort of precision woodwork. But Bourgeois use a fully-bolted neck joint - unlike most with bolts for the heel, the fingerboard is not glued to the top but is also bolted to the top from the underside! Very neat, and means that - albeit with a bit of fiddly access to the bolt heads - you can take the neck off with a couple of Allen keys. Two very thin shims and about an hour later, perfect neck angle.

This guitar also totally blows the ideas that a bolted neck doesn't sound as good as a glued one, and that shims 'ruin' the tone, out of the water... it sounds absolutely fantastic, and exactly the same after being reset. (Needing which was not a fault with the guitar, more a factor of the Scottish climate I think!)

camf

^^^^ Exactly this.

camf

Initial indications are good! Headstock still on. And it’s a Gibson. Full inspection to follow. Phew.