Moving my ES 335 in a household shipment

[Rockinvet]

Getting ready to move long distance and I'm going to put my ES 335 in the shipment. Im a bit apprehensive but its been appraised and is insured. It will be with all my household goods boxed up. My final concern is should I loosen the strings? If I was shipping it for sale I would but its may be in storage for a few weeks. I know there have been threads on shipping and loosening strings and of course, its a Gibson so maybe loosening the strings will preserve the headstock.
What say you?

 

[Happy Enchilada]

Definitely loosen the strings. It'll give you peace of mind if nothing more. Or remove 'em - restring when you hit your new home. More than that, do yourself a favor and invest in a HEAVY DUTY HARDSHELL CASE. Not a cute wooden one with "Gibson" stenciled on it, but something like this one from SKB ($345 on Reverb):

I had a custom shop '64 reissue 335 once, and I know what they cost - trust me, the case is a good investment. And you can use it to transport it with impunity in perpetuity.

 

[schmee]

I would loosen just slightly.
Support under the headstock so there is no 'momentum' if the case is dropped flat.

 

[Swirling Snow]

A Gibson headstock is too heavy for the neck and will break off if subjected to sufficient lateral force (like falling over when stood on end). No matter what case you use, pack above and below the headstock with clean rags so the headstock is immobilized. I stress clean, because my polishing cloth which I used on the guitar every day softened the nitro and left marks when stuffed against the neck for 5 years (Dunlop 65).

Myself, I like to loosen the trussrod when I loosen the strings. After all, one is supposed to balance the other.

In the 50 years my Lester has been alive, several times it's stay 'under the bed' has become extended. Never pack your guitar way thinking "I'll come back to this." Few things in life are more important than your guitar, but many are more urgent.


Hope you like your new digs!

 

[String Tree]

Getting ready to move long distance and I'm going to put my ES 335 in the shipment. Im a bit apprehensive but its been appraised and is insured. It will be with all my household goods boxed up. My final concern is should I loosen the strings? If I was shipping it for sale I would but its may be in storage for a few weeks. I know there have been threads on shipping and loosening strings and of course, its a Gibson so maybe loosening the strings will preserve the headstock.
What say you?

Loosen the Strings.
Why take a chance?

 

[dented]

I moved 40+ guitars 2400 miles in a storage Pod last year. I didn't loosen any strings and they were all in hard shell cases. No extra padding, no casualties. Lucky I guess. They were all standing straight up on end.

 

[uriah1]

Or your case inside a packed braced box

 

[Sparky2]

Define 'long distance'.

Virginia to North Dakota?

Or Virginia to Mannheim, Germany?

Why can't you hand carry the Gibson?
I'm asking for a friend.

 

[loopfinding]

Are you flying to your new spot? I would just take it with. Even flying, a seat for a guitar on a domestic flight one way is not too expensive. Why chance it for no reason? If my 335 got busted up, I’d be more upset about the individual guitar than replacing it.

 

[Ed Driscoll]

When we moved from Milpitas to Texas in 2016, I just packed up all my guitars (including two Les Pauls and a Gibson acoustic) in their regular hardshell cases, the movers put them in the big truck, and they arrived fine.

 

[Rockinvet]

Define 'long distance'.

Virginia to North Dakota?

Or Virginia to Mannheim, Germany?

Why can't you hand carry the Gibson?
I'm asking for a friend.

Virginia to California

 

[Sparky2]

Virginia to California

I offer my deepest condolences.

 

[Sparky2]

 

[Sparky2]

 

[Mindthebull]

You say leave in storage for a few weeks? Not sure of your circumstances but if it were me I would find a safe temporary home for it, or keep it with me rather than leave a 335 I cared about in some shipping container in god knows where. Insured or not, personally I would rather have the guitar than the insurance money.

 

[aging_rocker]

Virginia to California? Just pack the 335 well into the case, slacken the strings and you'll be fine.

I shipped my acoustic dreadnought (although not that valuable in money terms, it was the only guitar I possessed at the time, so it was precious to me) from UK to NZ, packed into a shipping container with all our other stuff.

I bought an 'on sale' acoustic 12-string hard case for it ("close enough", I figured), slackened the strings a bit and padded it out with old socks/t-shirts and such so there was no chance of any movement. Basically, I packed the guitar into the case, and the shipping company then packed the case into the container.

It went through the Mediterranean, the Suez canal, loitered around in Singapore and the Tropics for a while in 2000% humidity, and made it here intact after 8 weeks at sea.

Nothing in the container was damaged, so those packing guys knew their stuff. It was honestly incredible to watch them at work.

 

[sax4blues]

I’ve never understood the string loosening. What is this accomplishing or preventing?

 

[Steven Kaplan]

with impunity in perpetuity




HUH ?

 

[Telekarster]

FWIW I saw an interview with Vince Gill once and he said that if he's not playing his guitars, of which he has many valuable guitars in his collection, he always tunes them down a whole step regardless if they're being moved or simply sitting stagnate.

 

[aging_rocker]

I’ve never understood the string loosening. What is this accomplishing or preventing?

Not a lot probably, it might make any humidity changes easy for the guitar to handle?
Probably more relevant to acoustics and semi's than solid body instruments.

Anyway, it always gets mentioned, and doesn't seem to do any harm.