There is nothing quite as depressing or heartbreaking as injuring or watching one of our expensive instruments ding, scratch or break.
As we've been collecting, building, and buying more guitars, my bands practice sessions have become an obstacle course of guitars and basses leaning up against couches, amps and walls. After buying a new Paul Reed Smith (merry christmas to me), I decided we needed a compact stand for them all. The cheapest one I could find manufactured was about 80 bucks and didn't look like it even protected the guitars that well.
Fast forward to a slow Monday morning and I have this.
I figured for the cost of some soft material, brackets and screws, and some left over 2x3's, I could have a safer and better looking stand for next to nothing. Challenge accepted.
First thing was to decide how many it should hold. Our set up changes quite a bit, but at most we have 2 guitarist with 2 guitars a piece and a bass player. We usually have an extra guitar or two laying around so 7 spots seemed right. Plus at 40" wide, it's still pretty space conscience.
Average guitar height from base to nut is 30-38 inches. 26 inch height with the guitars at an angle puts the stand touching the guitar around the top third of the neck. This provides a sturdy stance for the guitar without making the stand to top heavy.
Most electric guitars are less than 2 inches thin, but I wanted to be able to include acoustic guitars into the mix too. I guessed that the average acoustic is about 4" think so I made the spacing 5 inches with 3 inches at each end.
Alright. Got all then dimensions figured out and drawn up. Now it's time to start cuttin.
Measure twice cut once,
blah blah,
and here we are.
I didn't want the butts of the guitars to be sitting on a square edge for fear it would dig into the finish over time, so I ripped the corner of the front board at about a 35 degree angle. It's not the perfect angle for every guitar, but once the soft finish goes on it should be OK.
Did a little mock up so I could hold some guitars up to it and make sure it looked right. Everything was a go at this point.
Next major step is to cut the neck slots into the top board. I debated on what shape to use for this for quite a while. The top board depth is 2.5" so I don't have enough room to set the neck all the way in. Since I didn't have anything to go by, I just cut a shape similar to the shape of the neck that's about 1.5"x1.5"
The first slot was just free hand drawn and then I used some blue painters tape to make a quick template for the rest. Little jig sawin' and sanding and it's all ready. After I held it up to the rest of the stand I noticed that the lower corner could pinch the neck some if the guitar were angled to the side to much, so I did a quick mod on all the slots and cut an angle with a 22.5 deg setting on the jig saw.
Time to assemble.
The two bottom cross beams were screwed in with some quick elbow braces. I went with a bit sturdier connection for the top beam. On top of it being more weight bearing, I wanted to make sure it was at a perfect 90 deg angle to the bottom piece and the bracket here was perfect for that.
Now to test. I have some soft material I bought to put on the wood, but i want to wait until after it's painted to put that on.
Main construction is done. Just a few details to do at this point.
Need to:
Paint and Logo,
Fab velcro straps on each slot to keep guitars from getting bumped out,
Some sort of brace to keep them from sliding on the bottom boards,
some sweet golf ball casters I made.
Will post up new pics when finished.
Feel free to post comments and suggestions.
RF
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