Official Luthiers Forum!

We recently had a thread about the Hercules stands which reminded me that I wanted to report back on my experiences with other options.

Ann Arbor Guitars and before that Collins Lutherie have used the Hercules patented and unique "hangers" for over a decade now and we like them just fine. I've used them, the hangers, not the stands in my home for over five years with no damage to finish from the padding.

The stands in the pics below I've used in my home for over a decade now and regardless of finish, nitro, FP, Cat Poly, Cat Urethane the foam padding on the stands has never reacted with any of these finishes I am happy to report. They are widely available under a couple of product names from the usual suspects and rather inexpensive as well. They also come in different configurations holding more or fewer guitars and I have more of these stands on the lower level where the electrics live.

In the pics below are the guitars that I built that I kept. These are early guitars (all but one) from back in the days when I had no idea if they would explode or not. Not wanting to go ugly early and start selling an unknown I kept or gave away the first 15 or so. Anyway when taking pics of the stands I got carried away with the Koa, BRW, Hog, Honduran Rosewood, Adi tops, etc. Guess I still can't pass up a pretty piece of tone wood.

I thought that this thread might be useful to others if we encouraged everyone to post pics and tell us your experiences with what you use as guitar stands or display set-ups. If you want to show off your creations too please do!!!

Thanks for looking

I hang as many as I can. They don't get played if they are in cases. However you can see one in a Hurcules stand. The foam on the bottom where the guitars back rests on the legs is disintegrating, but it just wipes off the guitar.





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I left this just finished guitar (EM6000) on the stand overnight and the plastic ends of the piece the guitar sits on burned into the finish. The foam part was fine, it was the hard plastic ends. I had to wet sand it and buff it out again.

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Steve Sollod (pronounced sorta like "Solid")
www.swiftcreekguitars.com

BTW - Hesh, that's a nice line up beautiful builds. Don't you want to build some more?

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Steve Sollod (pronounced sorta like "Solid")
www.swiftcreekguitars.com

I really like the Konig and Meyer Heli 2 stand. Great for display and gigging. More stable than it looks and folded it'll fit in some gig bags.

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/KM17580B

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Not really having a problem with the height adjustment, but thanks for the link. The issue, which is very minor, is that the foam on the legs is deteriorating into a dry black powder. Doesn't mark or mar the instrument in any way. I suppose I could contact them and ask for a replacement, but that seems overkill.

Thanks Steve, I developed a sensitivity to mahogany dust and stopped building because of that. Maple and other woods are always an option. I kept my BRW stash too and as more time passes the more I think that I may build again at some point.

I made this rack when my first shop was in a small high-rise apartment where space was at a premium. It's just a 7" x 6' with cutouts for 10 guitars. Comfortably fits 10 dreadnoughts at about a 70° angle.

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Pat

For guitar stands that go places, my favorite for a few years now has been a K&M Memphis Pro. Expensive, but worth every penny in my book. Why? Because it is stable, it won't mess up the guitar's finish, and it actually folds up for transport in ways that don't leave things poking out. I can stash it in the same bag as my heavy duty travel music stand. Very handy.

For hanging guitars at home, I bought a whole bunch of String Swing hangers, some extra 1/4"-20 T-nuts, a few long oak boards, and put together something that works great for me. If you take the String Swings apart, you will see that the U shaped neck hanger just screws into a 1/4"-20 T-nut. I took all the hangers off, and took out all the T-nuts. I drilled T-nut friendly holes every 6 inches or so in the oak boards (Forstner bit slightly bigger than the T-nut base, then regular bit slightly bigger than the T-nut threaded part), and put a T-nut into every hole. I then mounted the long oak boards to the wall about a foot from the ceiling, making sure to drive into studs. This gives me a very stable hanging wall that can be reconfigured as often as I want to fit different guitars or space them out however I want, with the minimum change being a 6 inch difference.

This is what I did. A plank of walnut and articulated hercules hangers.