60 degree temperature difference? Help!!!

[BroKen_H]

I stayed at Minot AFB one February when it got down to -48. Too cold. I mean, really. When the First Sergeant tells you you have to wear protection over your mouth to go outside because the air can freeze your larynx, that's cold. (those are the blue, i.e., cold emotes).

 

[pikingrin]

-1! That's insane. I can't wrap my head around that kind of cold. Coldest I've ever felt was maybe like 5-10F, and that was in England, and I wanted to die. Anything less than 50 is too cold for this gulf coast guy.

I grew up down in Houston and I couldn't wait to get away from that humidity.

I just opened up the big box that the two guitars were packed in (in their own boxes). The individual boxes don't feel any different than room temperature... Fighting the urge to bust those fuckers open now.

 

[pikingrin]

I just said "fuck it" and checked the temp of the interior boxes. Seemed like it had reached room temp so I opened them up!

 

[Greg_L]

I grew up down in Houston and I couldn't wait to get away from that humidity.

You jinxed us. It's fucking 25 degrees this morning!

Congrats on the guitars, but you obviously didn't follow proper box opening protocol in a secure climate controlled hyperbaric chamber. Hopefully the birds on the fretboard don't die.

 

[DM60]

You jinxed us. It's fucking 25 degrees this morning!

Still warmer than where he. The Mid-West is either below zero or near zero, really cold. (No comment from the Canadians )

 

[mjbphotos]

-4F here this morning. -30F with the windchill. Trying to convince my wife we need to move south, but she's from Canada.

 

[pikingrin]

You jinxed us. It's fucking 25 degrees this morning!

-4 with a wind chill of -16, snow coming later. We might make it back up to freezing (32) by next Monday/Tuesday. Quit whining...

Congrats on the guitars, but you obviously didn't follow proper box opening protocol in a secure climate controlled hyperbaric chamber. Hopefully the birds on the fretboard don't die.

 

[ashcat_lt]

This is one of those rare times when I agree with Greg. It's at least 60 degrees too fucking cold here right now. Give me 90 degrees and 90 percent humidity any day, but when things start to freeze you can bite it! First realistic chance I get I'm moving back to New Orleans, or better yet Belize.

 

[miroslav]

I don't care for ass-biting single digit cold with -20 windchills and tons of snow....but when it's in the 30s - 40s and a nice sunny winter day outside, that's OK by me. My ideal outside temp is in the 60s -70s during the day and 40s -50s at night.

I'll take that over 80s - 90s and 80% - 90% humidity any day of the week. Sweating all day and night is not my idea of comfortable living.

 

[ashcat_lt]

Cold makes me feel all stressed out. Scrunching up my shoulders and everything else feels almost exactly like extreme tension, and sometimes fools my brain into feeling that way.

90 and 90 is like a nice relaxing bath. It's almost impossible to be stressed in that environment. You really know that you're a part of the universe, because you can feel it rubbing against your skin as you swim through the air.

 

[Lt. Bob]

wow ..... ya'll pussies!

LOL ......... ......... Wasn't super cold last night .... maybe around 39 ....... I was out in the yard doing stuff in a t-shirt and shorts ...... of course, I have a pretty good bit of built in insulation!

 

[Greg_L]

wow ..... ya'll pussies!

LOL ......... ......... Wasn't super cold last night .... maybe around 39 ....... I was out in the yard doing stuff in a t-shirt and shorts ...... of course, I have a pretty good bit of built in insulation!

And Hawaiian shirts keep you warm no matter what the outside temp is.

 

[miroslav]

Cold makes me feel all stressed out. Scrunching up my shoulders and everything else feels almost exactly like extreme tension, and sometimes fools my brain into feeling that way.

90 and 90 is like a nice relaxing bath. It's almost impossible to be stressed in that environment. You really know that you're a part of the universe, because you can feel it rubbing against your skin as you swim through the air.

Well...different strokes, I guess.

90/90 makes me feel like an elephant is riding on my shoulders. Completely knocks all the life out of me and I just want to lay still and not move much. The only thing that saves me is air conditioning, and at least two showers each day.
I've been in Florida in January/February...and it was too hot and humid.

The cooler weather brings me back to life, and I feel motivated to do things.
I spent 20 years skiing most of the winter, and totally enjoying the weather...so I guess it's just leftover from that.

 

[Ainaudio]

Air shipping for guitars is dangerous, because temperature and humidity regimes can be extreme, and flight loading (it can happen several times) can be very brutal (post delivery the same)... Ask sender to release strings some 2 semitones before shipping, and to put long piece of soft material between strings and frets/fretboard/pickups. Next level what can be done is removing knobs, pot nuts/washers, switch nut/screws and packing them separately, if possible - screw pickups deeper - shortly - deepening all possible what can be damaged. Guitar's body must be centred and stabilised into case from all sides. But never put something into headstock department of case, headstock and neck's upper part must be free! Bolt-on guitar necks can be dismantled. Use double carton box without information about guitar inside - good working old anti theft method. But mark box as "Fragile!" + Glass symbol, and "Insured", mark "Top-Up^" side, add Umbrella symbol, do it from all sides. All it together will as minimum double safety for this shipping "lottery"...

 

[muttley600]

Air shipping for guitars is dangerous, because temperature and humidity regimes can be extreme, and flight loading (it can happen several times) can be very brutal (post delivery the same)... Ask sender to release strings some 2 semitones before shipping, and to put long piece of soft material between strings and frets/fretboard/pickups. Next level what can be done is removing knobs, pot nuts/washers, switch nut/screws and packing them separately, if possible - screw pickups deeper - shortly - deepening all possible what can be damaged. Guitar's body must be centred and stabilised into case from all sides. But never put something into headstock department of case, headstock and neck's upper part must be free! Bolt-on guitar necks can be dismantled. Use double carton box without information about guitar inside - good working old anti theft method. But mark box as "Fragile!" + Glass symbol, and "Insured", mark "Top-Up^" side, add Umbrella symbol, do it from all sides. All it together will as minimum double safety for this shipping "lottery"...

 

[BroKen_H]

Ainaudio; I can understand how a guitar loaded from Carvin in El Cajon on a 70 degree day, launched in an unprotected cargo plane to -30 in the atmosphere for a couple hours, unloaded in Denver at 30, shipped to Georgia in the same -30 off in 95% humidity and 60 and then ground shipped to Savannah might be damaging...but dismantling the metal parts (assume this is for expansion/contraction ratio of the metal being higher than the wood? ) still leaves the frets in. Even if you did the brutal dismantling of a guitar (and expected the end user to be capable of re-assemble), the fretboard (by your method and theory) would still be damaged...
Sorry, this just isn't done. Carvin can ship you a kit, so this may be a bad example, but most guitar mfgs would NEVER dismantle their guitars, especially the expensive ones, and ship them that way. And I for one would not like to receive one in that condition.
Secondly, most guitar mfgs worth a penny know how to mark their boxes to get their customers the guitar in one piece...that's just good business.

 

[Greg_L]

Lol. Dismantle a guitar before shipping? They're fucking guitars. They're not human organs en route to a transplant.

 

[Lt. Bob]

what an idiotic post.

 

[Johnny Don't!]

Hahaha I freakin' love this forum: not only are a ton of you guys *super* knowledgeable, but yer also hilarious. Perfect.

I agree with most of what's been said here: you don't need to baby them too much; just make sure you allow the temperature in the shipping boxes & cases to *GRADUALLY* equalize to the room temperature before you open them. Someone posted earlier that temp isn't really the key factor here; it's moisture. While I agree with that, I have to add that temperature is the #1 factor IF the change in temperature is very rapid. If not, then it's almost a non-issue for the most part.

Also, as has been mentioned, the type/style of the body makes a big difference as well. A heavy, solid body like my Fender CS Tele isn't going to be affected too much by temperature changes (once again, assuming they're not crazy drastic, as in the guitar was in a case in yer trunk in 5F temps overnight and then brought inside where the case was opened and placed in front of a space heater) but my Gibson 335 or any of my acoustics will be more severely affected.

The hardest, most annoying issue for me is wintertime acoustic gigs and trying to balance humidity against freezing temps: the more humidity in an acoustic or hollowbody, the more dangerous freezing temps are, as when water freezes, it forms a crystalline structure which causes the volume of said water to expand greatly (which is why a lot of acoustic faces crack in freezing temps); this process of crystallization wreaks havoc on the cellular structure of carbon-based lifeforms, including trees/wood, which is main reason why deciduous trees shed their leaves (yes, they actively "shed" them; they just don't "fall" off): lots of water is required for the photosynthesis process, which occurs in the leaves. As winter approaches, the trees push out most of their water into the leaves and then literally "cut" the leaves from themselves and seal the holes where the leaves were to prevent any further loss of moisture. But, if the tree didn't expend most of its moisture, the freezing temps would tear it apart from the inside. This crystallization is also the main reason humanity has not been able to perfect cryogenic sleep; the freezing process literally tears humans (and pretty much all other lifeforms, with the exception of one really amazing frog) to shreds.

All that being said, humidification is STILL extremely important; I've had acoustics crack on the face (typically right below the saddle) even when they've been sitting in the same temperature for days but weren't properly humidified. In my experience, humidification is still important for solid-body electrics as well, but more so for the quality/lifespan of the neck.

Hope that helps!