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Thread: New guy looking for advice on travel with mandolin

  1. #1

    Default New guy looking for advice on travel with mandolin

    Hello All,

    First post here and I do really appreciate the resource this forum has offered me so far.

    I recently purchased and Eastman MD315 for my second mandolin. First was a used Ibanez. It really didn't take long to realize the Ibanez was not the best mandolin for me. Anyway, I'm a pilot and I travel extensively around Arizona. I purchased a fiberglass hard case for the Eastman so it could go with me on my overnight trips. I am however really concerned about the temperature swings and extremes the mandolin might be exposed to. I won't put it in the baggage compartment however the cabin is not much better! I've froze my butt off on many occasion in the cabin. I do have Humidipacks and a bluetooth temp and humidity recorder in the case so at least I can monitor it.

    Can anyone give me some guidance on traveling with the instrument? What temperatures or temperature swings should I be concerned with? High humidity is usually not an issue here however low humidity is a constant.

    Thanks!
    Judd

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  3. #2
    coprolite mandroid's Avatar
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    Question Re: New guy looking for advice on travel with mandolin

    In Its Original hard Case I packed my Mandolin in a duffle bag, thickly wrapped in my clothing ,

    And that duffle bag was strapped to a back pack frame ..

    as I had shuttle vans busses and such to take to and from the airport ..

    I now own a Mix A5 carbon fiber mandolin & an Eastman fiberglass case ,,


    On my bicycle tour of Ireland & Scotland I had a pocket mandolin , and a well padded gig bag

    to have on hand for sitting in at Pubs.. and campgrounds along the way ..

    I stuck to the north west , summer in northern California , Good luck with the Arizona desert..


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  4. #3

    Default Re: New guy looking for advice on travel with mandolin

    FWIW, I don't worry about it with my "travel" mandolin. It's in a basic padded gig bag and that seems fine. The risk is low.

    Based on my question about this in the thread below, if I were to bring my more expensive mandolin, I would use my hardshell case and just let it acclimate more in the case before I open it up and play it depending on how cold/warm and low/high the humidity transition from what it was to where it is...

    https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/t...-s-a-Guy-To-Do

  5. #4
    Registered User Jill McAuley's Avatar
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    Default Re: New guy looking for advice on travel with mandolin

    Yeah, like mandokismet says, I would think that if you treat the mandolin similar to how you would a recently shipped mandolin - letting it acclimate slowly before opening the case up, that you'd be ok. Also, anecdotally, I moved back home to Ireland from San Francisco last August, big difference in humidity and temperatures (we had a week of below freezing temps recently), and touch wood, my Girouard has been fine and well protected from the temperature and humidity changes in it's Price fibreglass case with humidipak.
    2018 Girouard Concert oval A
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  7. #5
    Pittsburgh Bill
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    Default Re: New guy looking for advice on travel with mandolin

    How about a very inexpensive new or used but playable mandolin like a Savannah or a Rogue. A Cafe sponsor has a Savannah advertised now in the classifieds for cost of a few cases of beer.
    Then play it and don't worry about it. If it suffers from the conditions you describe, strip it for parts and buy another.
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  9. #6
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    Default Re: New guy looking for advice on travel with mandolin

    Ditto comment above from pittsburghbill. I was in sales and spent some time traveling doing overnights, airports, etc. I found a cheap Epiphone A style that had a blem in the finish and it was marked 2nd. It cost 99 bucks. Put it in gig bag and took it everywhere. Fit in the overhead, behind the truck seat and I never worried much about it. Even got me through a Friday night stuck in O'Hare. And now it's my campfire instrument. Just another approach to your question.
    Oh, and pardon the airplane pun.
    Ratliff R5 2007, Capek A5 2003, Washburn M5S-SB Jethro Burns 1982, Mid-Mo M-2, Epiphone MM 30 Bk mandolins, Harmony Batwing 1970's, George Bauer bowlback early 1900's Philadelphia.


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  10. #7
    Registered User Rob Ross's Avatar
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    Default Re: New guy looking for advice on travel with mandolin

    It sounds like I was probably flying bigger metal than what you're on, but I carried a mandolin as a wrench on the DC-10, then worked the front seats on the baby 'Bus, DC-9, MadDog, and finally retiring off the A321. I carried a super-cheap eBay-special Rover in a cheap case, and the only damage it received is when I walked into a door while holding it during a layover. The Rover was cheap, sounded cheap, and could never be tuned right. I couldn't stand it. In 2008, I finally decided to buy a bottom end Kentucky, but the guy at the Homestead Picking Parlor knew me, and let me try a Kentucky KM-505. Sold! I bought it, and a Boulder padded gig bag and schlepped that mando around till I retired this fall. Up to four legs a day, multiple tail changes, vans, buses, trains, cabs, you name it. Sat reserve, LOTS of deadheads where the mando had no problem going in the overhead of a mainline jet straight in, headstock first. On RJs, if there wasn't room in the overhead, every single flight attendant let me put it in the coat closet up front when I asked nicely. The Airbus was great, had a closet in the cockpit, mandolin lived there; one day the jump-seater also had a KM-505. In the MadDog (MD-88), there was NO room for storage, so the mandolin lived behind my seat, upside down, standing on the headstock all day long. I never, ever got any damage to the mandolin. No cracks, no warps, no snapped strings, shifted bridges, no broken this, that, or the other. It probably wasn't fond of going from Cancun to Calgary one New Years Eve, but it played fine and I made a lot of neat jams and sessions with it. If you're riding other folks planes a lot, I'd ditch the hardshell case for better stowage options. Oh, the Boulder bag had shoulder straps. I took one off, and would flip the bag upside down, stick the neck through the shafts of my roller-bag handles, let the strap support the weight, and off we went to the next plane. I did sew a little extra padding onto the gig bag over where neck rubbed against the roller bag, but it took me years to getting around to that, and there was never any damage I could see.

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    Rob Ross
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