Acoustic: Too much humidity

  • Thread starter Thread starter Monkey Allen
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I live in Hawaii and the humidity here is often off the scale 90%+. I've been here 30+ years. I'm a drummer/keyboardist and have many guitarist friends.

A friend of mine doesn't air con his studio and all the metal parts on his guitars have corroded. All the tuners etc... The wood seems ok and I have never heard of musicians here talking about warping and guitars falling apart, but the corrosion problem is very real.

Metal is full of pores in the surface, and what kills the gear is the cycling from cool to hot when it's muggy. Moisture condenses in the pores and corrosion starts. The best prevention for that is car wax. It fills the pores where the corrosion starts. I do my drum stands with car wax (Maguires Cleaner Wax is my favorite) every 6 mos and I'd recommend the same for any metal. If you have something small made of metal that you want to protect, put it in a zip lock bag and spray some WD40 or wax it and in the bag it will never rust. My brother keeps tools on his boat that way.

I bought a nice $40 or so digital thermometer/humidity meter from Radio Shack and it works great to see what's going on.

One time when I was drywalling my living room I unplugged my tv for a few weeks. When I plugged it back in there was a big "crack" and the thing blew. My neighbors phoned and asked if I was ok! :( I opened the tv and there was a 1/16" of water in the bottom.

I keep my air con on in my studio at all times. It's the middle of February at 6 am I have my ac blasting. Air con really dries the air out. In my bedroom I have a dehumidifier and ac going. The dehumidifier works and I'd suggest one. Until I hooked up a drain hose it filled up the bucket and needed emptying 3-4 times a day! That's a lot of water.

The latest dehumidifier I got is a Frigidaire and I like it. Before this we had a Whirlpool and a Kenmore and they were both not so good. They are all very noisy! I added some car insulation to the inside of the cabinet on mine but still they are noisy devices by nature.

In my studio the gear heats the room and with the ac on I don't need a dehumidifier. Nothing rusts in here.

There's a store here called Harry's Music, and they've been around forever. If you phone them at 808-735-2866 and ask for the string department there will be someone there that I'll bet knows first hand wtf is up with humidity. It might be worth phoning them, they'll be happy to talk to you, and they do the string repairs for the symphony here, so if anybody knows, I'd suspect it's them.

Amazing how much I can blab on just 1/2 a cup of coffee! :)
 
I took my Martin into the repair shop not long after Hurricane Ike hit Galveston/Houston - there were a couple of less fortunate dreadnoughts there which were unlucky enough to be in Galveston when sea level rose up to everyone's roof -- now *that's* too much humidity :)

But Houston's definitely never arid, and I've never noticed a problem with my acoustics.
 
What you say about the porosity of metals is true especially cheaper brass parts and die cast fittings. They have pores that litrellay burst open when water gets in them.

On the humidifier thing. If I lived in a region with humidity that high most of the year I wouldn't do it for my guitars. Wood doesn't mind high humidity it doesn't like swift or abrupt changes in humidity. If you do have air con then I would recommend a humidifier in the case to keep the humidity a bit higher. Sounds odd to want to put moisture back but air con can really dry out a guitar in that sort of relative humidity area and dry it quickly.

In the end it is a matter of managing and maintaining a constant humidity above around 55% How you do that is down to you. Again avoid letting your guitar dry out too quickly that is where the problems start.
 
I took my Martin into the repair shop not long after Hurricane Ike hit Galveston/Houston - there were a couple of less fortunate dreadnoughts there which were unlucky enough to be in Galveston when sea level rose up to everyone's roof -- now *that's* too much humidity :)

But Houston's definitely never arid, and I've never noticed a problem with my acoustics.

Yeh that is a bit too wet.:eek:

I've had a few flood damaged guitars in over the years. Strangely most of the flood damage occurs as a result of fire. The fire brigade have little regard for where and how much water they use when quenching the blaze.:p
 
Just re read your post. Do you mean humidifier packs? I don't know of any oisture absorbing packs other than silica gel bags?
Yeah, the little silica packs like you get in vitamins (or, rather, in guitar cases).

Is there any danger in using them (aside from eating them)? I can't see it being a problem.... I usually just chuck them out but I'm thinking I'll put a couple in my cases; especially the guitars I use live get exposed to a lot of sweat and beer; while I do clean the actual guitars the next day, the cases sometimes get a bit damp/musty inside.

My LP came with a huge pack from the factory so I'm figuring they can't be all bad, but I do notice the fretboard looks quite dry sometimes (I don't play it too often so it sits in the case 99% of the time, seems like I take it out just to look at and oil the fretboard hehe).
 
Can you people stop insulting each other long enough to answer a question? I own a Wechter Dread. I keep it in it's case. All I want to know is, Are the humidifier packs that are advertised by music equipment retailers worth the money? Do they effectively do the job? Also, I read a guitar tip explaining that you can make your own out of a travel soap dish by wetting a sponge and squeezing out the excess moisture and placing it in the soap dish. You first punch or drill holes in the soap dish and secure the lid with rubber bands. This is an alternative to buying one. It of coarse, is placed in the guitar case.(?). Thanks.
 
Can you people stop insulting each other long enough to answer a question?
No

I own a Wechter Dread. I keep it in it's case. All I want to know is, Are the humidifier packs that are advertised by music equipment retailers worth the money? Do they effectively do the job? Also, I read a guitar tip explaining that you can make your own out of a travel soap dish by wetting a sponge and squeezing out the excess moisture and placing it in the soap dish. You first punch or drill holes in the soap dish and secure the lid with rubber bands. This is an alternative to buying one. It of coarse, is placed in the guitar case.(?).
Use the search function.


Your welcome
 
Yeah, the little silica packs like you get in vitamins (or, rather, in guitar cases).

Is there any danger in using them (aside from eating them)? I can't see it being a problem.... I usually just chuck them out but I'm thinking I'll put a couple in my cases; especially the guitars I use live get exposed to a lot of sweat and beer; while I do clean the actual guitars the next day, the cases sometimes get a bit damp/musty inside.

My LP came with a huge pack from the factory so I'm figuring they can't be all bad, but I do notice the fretboard looks quite dry sometimes (I don't play it too often so it sits in the case 99% of the time, seems like I take it out just to look at and oil the fretboard hehe).

They won't do any harm but the trouble with those is that they get saturated and have to be dried out or replaced. I really wouldn't worry too much about high humidity other than to stop mold and rust.
 
Right well thanks for all that...seems all will be good enough without having to buy dehumidifiers or soap dishes (actually I do have something like that in my case now but it's bone dry) or phone Hawaiian string theorists. The Hawaii post was great btw.

Anyway the humidity has gone down to under 80 here lately. So I might just change the old strings soon.
 
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