Blackbird Rider Nylon Guitar Actually Carbon-Fiber and Nearly Indestructible

Blackbird's Rider Nylon guitar is actually not made of nylon—ok its strings are—but instead it's far more highly-tech'd and its body and neck are actually carbon fiber. It may not be bullet-proof, but Blackbird says its "nearly indestructible," making it perfect as a travel guitar. The material has meant a few design tweaks over a traditional shape: it's far squarer, and the sound holes are now a single hole moved up to the neck, and dubbed a "soundscoop" instead—apparently this makes for a better sound response. The other side-effect is that it's light enough at 3-pounds to fit into an aircraft overhead locker. High-tech costs though—the nylon string model is $1,900, a smaller steel-stringed version is $1,600. [Product via GadgetLab]