Instruments In Cars

[rockies]

I notice reading in the forum there seems to be some misconceptions about leaving insruments in cars. I don't recommend leaving instruments in cars, but if you have to here's some thoughts based on actual experiments. The trunk is the best place to store your instrument, a car interior on a hot sunny day (say 100 deg using farenheit) due to the greenhouse effect will rise to 150 to 170 deg (kills children, dogs and instruments). Most glues start to creep under tension at 130 or so and release at 140 deg upward. The trunk on your car especially the modern lined and insulated for sound ones do not even achieve 100 deg because they only get the radiant heat from the metal. If you wrap your instrument in it's case in a thermal safety blanket (shiny side out) the temperature in the case will NOT even approach 80 deg. So if you have to, use the trunk not the interior. Don't believe it, take a two thermometer place one in interior, one in trunk on a hot day leave for a few hours come back and read them.93702
The photo attached is a thermal enclosure in my 2002 Honda Accord used for years in the hottest of weather at festivals etc. It is made with duct tape and roll thermal insulation used around hot water tanks and shaped to the inside of the trumk. It will hold two guitars and one mandolin and is removed or installed in about 5 minutes. Temp inside the enclosure on a hot hot day (all day) has never gone above 85 deg. and inside mandolin case was even cooler.
Dave

[Geordie]

What about cold weather?

[Dobe]

Not as bad as heat but you could try this: 93703

[JonZ]

Good post. Thanks.

I live where it can get to 110 in the shade. Wouldn't the trunk have to eventually reach that temperature?

[rockies]

JonZ, yes it probably would eventually temperature over the long haul will equalize but of course lags both rising and falling. That's the reason for the thermal blanket (available as emergency blankets at sport shops, auto suplies etc). You should alway have those in your car for emergencies anyway. I did try one time a small cooler with ice in it an no lid inside the enclosure but my Heiden was actually too cool when I took it out on a hot day and I was worried about playing it outside 'til it armed up a bit. But if you make an enclosure for your area just double up the layers, mine is only one.
Another bonus to the enclosure we travel to do shopping in the USA (about 2-1/2 hours each way) and we use the enclosure for meat, dairy and even frozen goods in a cooler in the enclosure. Also at festivals a beer cooler put inside the enclosure, the ice hardly melts during the whole day and helps keep the Heiden and D-18 cooler.
Geordie, in the winter here in Canada, I Use a travelite case, they really are well insulated, and I wrap it in a thermal blanket (dark side out), and travel with it behind the drivers seat covered with an old blanket and of course don't leave it out for long hours ( 3 or 4 is no problem at zero fahenheit) in the car. I do have a friend who has done much the same and put a couple of those cheap little hand warmer packs inside the blanket and says the case is actually warm to the touch in his trunk travelling.
Dave
Dave

[Ivan Kelsall]

As Dave points out so well,insulation is the key.The Bedouin Arabs discovered that 1000's of years back.Wrap anything up in enough material thickness & it'll keep the heat / cold out.Of course if you were to leave it in a car boot say,for weeks on end,the temp.would equalise & your instrument would get hot / cold,

Ivan

[Doug Edwards]

I lined the inside of my tool box with R19 radient insulation for those times the instuments have to be unattended in the heat. That being said, I NEVER LEAVE MY INSTRUMENT INSIDE A VEHICLE for an extended length of time in the heat. We're plenty warm down here, cold is not an issue.

[Geordie]

I NEVER LEAVE MY INSTRUMENT INSIDE A VEHICLE.Words to live by.

[f5loar]

In the truck is the safe place to prevent theft. I recall the time a well known banjo picker left his banjo in the back seat. Came back a short hour later and the back window was busted out and there sat beside his banjo was another banjo.
Want another banjo joke?
In the State of Georgia it is legal for banjo pickers to place their banjo on the dashboard when parking in a handicap space.

[brunello97]

In the truck is the safe place to prevent theft. I recall the time a well known banjo picker left his banjo in the back seat. Came back a short hour later and the back window was busted out and there sat beside his banjo was another banjo.


Ha! I didn't see that one coming at all. :)

I did leave my Schwab electric in the case in a closet in our house in Austin while we were away in Italy for the summer. One of us turned the AC off (maybe it was me.) Not as hot as Kerrville, Doug, but almost. When we got back all the hard foam in the case had melted into a goo encasing the mandolin. Kevin was amazingly great about it, taking the 'heat' for the melt-down, though it was not at all his fault. He got me a new fretboard, rewiring, cleanup and a new case. I'll go to my grave praising the instrument and the man.

The emergency thermal blanket in the trunk is a good idea under any circumstance. Will do.

Mick

[Astro]

In the truck is the safe place to prevent theft. I recall the time a well known banjo picker left his banjo in the back seat. Came back a short hour later and the back window was busted out and there sat beside his banjo was another banjo.
Want another banjo joke?
In the State of Georgia it is legal for banjo pickers to place their banjo on the dashboard when parking in a handicap space.

Well I backed over a friend's banjo and it didn't even break. I had to shift back into forward and reverse several times before I was sure I heard a crunch. Best tone I'd ever heard on that thing.

You can pick your friends. You can pick your friends nose. But friends don't let friends pick banjo's.

[JonZ]

Okay, so I put the mandolin in the trunk. That still leaves the double bass problem. Any suggestions?

[SincereCorgi]

Okay, so I put the mandolin in the trunk. That still leaves the double bass problem. Any suggestions?

I think it depends on the idiosyncrasies of your car's interior... I know guys who claim to have carried their basses in the shotgun seat of their VW bugs by folding the seat down and angling the neck properly.

[Buck]

Good post. Thanks.

I live where it can get to 110 in the shade. Wouldn't the trunk have to eventually reach that temperature?

I'm not the OP, but yes, it will equalize eventually and reach the 110 degrees if that is the ambient temperature. However, 110 degrees won't damage the instrument. (I've played and camped at festivals with temperatures near or just above 100. At 110 I'm in much worse condition than the instrument.) It's the 140 plus temperatures inside the car or truck cab that cause the serious damage to the instrument.

I use a variation of the OP's method. I drive an F-150 with an insulated ARE cap on the bed. Because there is no glass, the covered truck bed is only slightly hotter than the ambient temperature. Based on my temperature tracking measurements, on a very hot day with the truck parked in the sun on an asphalt surface, the temperature in the truck bed is only 5-6 degrees hotter than the ambient. So, on a 95 degree day the temperature in the bed of the truck is barely above 100, less if I'm moving.

Of course this isn't the best long term storage environment, but understanding the problem and possible solutions makes traveling with instrument much easier.

[mandroid]

Hot trunk storage causes damage in wooden instruments..

Might make Peter Mix's Carbon Fiber mandolins an advantage.

they are already Heated to cure the Pre Preg Fabric, in the Mold, as it is.

to a higher temperature.

Clear Carbon also makes the Bodies for Orchestral string instruments
including Bass Viols.. as well as for Peter's Mandolins.

[JonZ]

I think it depends on the idiosyncrasies of your car's interior... I know guys who claim to have carried their basses in the shotgun seat of their VW bugs by folding the seat down and angling the neck properly.

I can get it to fit inside, but then you get the greenhouse effect.