Travel Guitar
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2016 3:00 am
Hi Guys,
My wife and I just got back from a three week vacation. Loads of fun and plenty of sights to see but... no guitar! I (foolishly) thought that I could do without a guitar for a few weeks while we were on vacation. After all... I still had my harmonicas. After about a week, I was really missing my guitar and the GAS started to build for a travel guitar. As we traveled I started researching my options. There are several great travel guitars out there, but they cost almost as much as a full sized guitar! Since I don't plan to need this guitar much, and I'm such a cheap-scape, I was in a real delema. I then started looking at used travel guitars... still not cheap enough. Then I considered making my own, but all the hardware and electronics still would be expensive. So, then I started considering just buying an old beater-guitar but then I would still have an issue carrying around a full sized guitar.
Then it hit me... beater guitar cut down as small as possible for easy transportation. I started looking for used gear and somewhere around $50 was about as cheap as I could find. So I set my budget... no more than $50. Most of the cheap beater-guitars on-line would add shipping, which almost doubled my budget.
By the time we got home from vacation my GAS attack had grown to an uncontrollable level. I was on a quest and I was determined not to spend more than $50!
Over the next few days I searched all the thrift stores and pawn stores in my area. I was in the second pawn shop explaining what I was after. The shop guy said, "People bring in beater guitars sometime but we pass on them because we can't make any money on them." As he was showing me his nice used $200-$300 guitars. An older guy in the shop overheard us talking and told me that he had a cheap, "project guitar" in the back. He went to the back, stayed several minutes, and then brought out this black Yamaha EG112C with rusty strings and stickers all over it. $50 flat, tax included, right at my cheapo budget. I tried to talk him down a little, but he wouldn't budge. We plugged it in so I could try it out.... very much out of tune and it would cut out occasionally if I twisted the volume knob but all the parts seemed to be there. The fret wires weren't even worn too bad. So it was a deal.
Let the project begin!
My wife and I just got back from a three week vacation. Loads of fun and plenty of sights to see but... no guitar! I (foolishly) thought that I could do without a guitar for a few weeks while we were on vacation. After all... I still had my harmonicas. After about a week, I was really missing my guitar and the GAS started to build for a travel guitar. As we traveled I started researching my options. There are several great travel guitars out there, but they cost almost as much as a full sized guitar! Since I don't plan to need this guitar much, and I'm such a cheap-scape, I was in a real delema. I then started looking at used travel guitars... still not cheap enough. Then I considered making my own, but all the hardware and electronics still would be expensive. So, then I started considering just buying an old beater-guitar but then I would still have an issue carrying around a full sized guitar.
Then it hit me... beater guitar cut down as small as possible for easy transportation. I started looking for used gear and somewhere around $50 was about as cheap as I could find. So I set my budget... no more than $50. Most of the cheap beater-guitars on-line would add shipping, which almost doubled my budget.
By the time we got home from vacation my GAS attack had grown to an uncontrollable level. I was on a quest and I was determined not to spend more than $50!
Over the next few days I searched all the thrift stores and pawn stores in my area. I was in the second pawn shop explaining what I was after. The shop guy said, "People bring in beater guitars sometime but we pass on them because we can't make any money on them." As he was showing me his nice used $200-$300 guitars. An older guy in the shop overheard us talking and told me that he had a cheap, "project guitar" in the back. He went to the back, stayed several minutes, and then brought out this black Yamaha EG112C with rusty strings and stickers all over it. $50 flat, tax included, right at my cheapo budget. I tried to talk him down a little, but he wouldn't budge. We plugged it in so I could try it out.... very much out of tune and it would cut out occasionally if I twisted the volume knob but all the parts seemed to be there. The fret wires weren't even worn too bad. So it was a deal.
Let the project begin!