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Building a Guitar Stand | |
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You can't get it in the shop, you can't order one online, so why not build your own ultimate custom guitar storage stand. Well, at least that was what I was thinking. It was getting more and more a problem with all these guitars standing here in different single guitarstands, guitars hanging on the walls and the cables all over the place. So a few days ago I went to my local hardware store to buy some wood and other materials to start trying things out and start building my own custom guitarstand.
My intention was to build a save place for my guitars and so I could put three or four guitars close for recording and playing. With "save" I mean they wont fall that easily when I walk around here in this place filled with cables and equipment. It just has happened too many times, for one reason or the other, that one of my guitars hit the floor when I or someone else tried to find their way to the other side of the jungle of cables and equipment. No bad accidents just yet, just some scars are left reminding me I should take better care of my guitars.
So while trying to find the right kind of woods I passed by the heating and water tubes and pipes. Now that got me thinking.... What if I could build it from metal tubes. It would look so much better. Looking a little closer and found all these connection pieces that are used to fit them together. They seem to fit rather tight so that looked great because I had no intention of doing any welding.
I suppose wood would have worked great too but metal just looked so much better to me.
To protect the guitars from the metal tubes while standing in my ultimate custom guitar stand I used isolation foam, which is normally used to isolate the heating tubes. They come in the same sizes as the tubes come, so that's great and easy too. I could get them in the color gray and some sickening green colors, needles to say I choose the gray ones.
Instead of welding the connections I wanted to keep it simple. I didn't have more then one day planned for this so it had to be finished quickly. I got started with two large tubes/pipes and a lot of different connection pieces a metal saw and isolation tubes. I started late in the afternoon after some more recording and guitar playing, during which I had given it some thought how to build it.
I started out making two long horizontal bars, about an arms length, covered with isolation foam, which are the resting place for the body of the guitar. Since I haven't made and scanned a picture yet this image will have to do.
The gray bars are the isolation foam (use chemical free, see the update below) which is used to place the guitar on and which the neck is resting against. The black is just the metal , although you can put more foam on it if you want, because its damn cheap. Maybe it even looks better.
The rack starts out with a small "feet" (on the left) a horizontal connection bar to the vertical bar, which also connects to the two gray guitar body resting bars, and the vertical bar. The vertical bar is also the front feet and the connection between the front resting bar for the guitar bodies and the upper separation bars, between where the guitar necks are placed.
Halfway I was really getting some bad blisters, not a good thing when you play guitar, bass, keyboards, violin, drum, percussion and some other instruments. So I wondered why it was getting so though getting the saw trough the metal. It was getting late so it must be me getting tired I thought. After getting two more blisters it turned out I had been trying to saw with a saw which had no more little teeth on it for the last half hour. No wonder I took me half an hour to finish one bar. So I had to wait for the next day and get some new blades for it at the hardware store.
Well the next day I got started again. I put together the left frame and the right frame and put the metal tubes with the isolation foam on it between the frames.
For now the connection pieces are colored copper and the metal tubes have a dark gray metal color, the foam gray and black knobs to finish of the ends of the small separation bars and are also used on the little feet. I suppose I could paint the metal and copper black, but it already looks great, and quite unique.
Notice that the separation bars are closer together on the left of the stand then they are on the right. The reason is I use the first three spaces for electric guitars and basses and the last two for acoustic guitars which have a bigger body, which of course need more space.
Besides a few blisters the price will amaze you. Depending on what kind of materials you use, you probably end up paying what you would pay for a single guitarstand when you buy it in the shop.