A bigger travel guitar…

My travel companion during the last years has been the travel guitar “Little Jane” by Furch. This summer, I saw a short article in a guitar magazine about an American manufacturer that sells travel guitars as well and produces them in China. The travel guitar I was looking at is the company’s largest model and significantly larger than the Furch guitar. It has a
65 cm scale and the neck is almost 45 mm wide – exactly what I had been looking for.

I was able to find a seller in Germany and ordered the “Journey Instruments FF412C”. The body of the guitar is just under 40 cm wide and 50 cm long without the neck. Taking off the neck is easy to do. On its widest point the guitar has a depth of 13 cm. So this model comes very close to a full-size guitar which is also reflected in its sound – it is not overly loud though. The soundboard is made from solid Sitka spruce and the back and sides are sapele mahagony. The guitar ist comfortable to play. Unlike the Furch model, the detachable neck is in one piece. The neck itself has a length of 57 cm. The problem with this guitar when it comes to travelling is the size of the back pack that it comes with.

All three measurements of the backpack surpass the airlines’ standards for carry-on luggage. In order to check it in as a regular luggage item the back pack is not suitable either since it doesn’t provide sufficient protection for the guitar. Also, this defeats the purpose of taking a travel guitar in my opinion. I have already had an issue with the size of the guitar on a Eurowings flight. After a lengthy discussion the staff allowed me to “one time only” take the guitar on board with me as a carry-on (on my flight back with the same airline I had no issues).
In order to prevent incidents like this in the future I will have a new bag made for the guitar that stays within the allowed measurements for carry-on luggage – perhaps I will also transport the neck in my checked luggage.

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