Scott Baxendale
Well-known member
I’ve worked in guitar shops in Dallas, Denver, Athens Ga, Nashville, Kansas City and Santa Fe NM. These cities cover the gamut of humidity conditions that guitars are exposed too. The best relative humidity for guitars to live in should be between 35%-45%. The humidity in Athens Ga probably averages around 60%. The average in Santa Fe is probably around 20%. In Georgia we never had to humidify, but we did have a dehumidifier in our spray room to keep it under 50% for finishing. In Denver and in Santa Fe we use a swamp cooler which keeps the humidity up in the 35% range.
For players the newer the guitar is the more attention that needs to be made to keep it from drying out too fast. Wood in guitars acts like a sponge and it absorbs moisture during humid times and releases moisture when it’s dry. Each season the wood goes through this cycle of swelling up during humid seasons and shrinking during the dry months. However, each year that passes the effect is a little less than the year before and then after 30-40 years of these seasonal changes the wood becomes “torrefied” which is a change in the woods cellular structure that makes it not act like a sponge anymore. Torrefication is a process that happens naturally over years, but it can also be forced into the wood by baking it in an over while under pressure. This is supposed to be the process that creates modern “roasted necks”, so when you see the term “Roasted Neck” what that is really supposed to mean is that it has been artificially torrefied. It is possible to get that roasted look in a piece of maple without actually making the wood torrefied, so I might be a little suspect in buying new so-called “roasted necks”
Most of the acoustics we remanufacture are guitars that are over 50 years old and all of the wood in these guitars has become naturally torrefied so after we rebuild them they are the most stable guitars you can buy with regards to how much the wood moves with humidity changes. This feature makes them superior to modern guitars for touring where the the guitar passes through different weather and humidity nearly everyday.
Saying all of that. If your guitar is less than 25-30 years old keep it in its case with a case humidifier when not playing it. Don’t hang it on a wall or keep it on a stand if the humidity is not consistent.
For players the newer the guitar is the more attention that needs to be made to keep it from drying out too fast. Wood in guitars acts like a sponge and it absorbs moisture during humid times and releases moisture when it’s dry. Each season the wood goes through this cycle of swelling up during humid seasons and shrinking during the dry months. However, each year that passes the effect is a little less than the year before and then after 30-40 years of these seasonal changes the wood becomes “torrefied” which is a change in the woods cellular structure that makes it not act like a sponge anymore. Torrefication is a process that happens naturally over years, but it can also be forced into the wood by baking it in an over while under pressure. This is supposed to be the process that creates modern “roasted necks”, so when you see the term “Roasted Neck” what that is really supposed to mean is that it has been artificially torrefied. It is possible to get that roasted look in a piece of maple without actually making the wood torrefied, so I might be a little suspect in buying new so-called “roasted necks”
Most of the acoustics we remanufacture are guitars that are over 50 years old and all of the wood in these guitars has become naturally torrefied so after we rebuild them they are the most stable guitars you can buy with regards to how much the wood moves with humidity changes. This feature makes them superior to modern guitars for touring where the the guitar passes through different weather and humidity nearly everyday.
Saying all of that. If your guitar is less than 25-30 years old keep it in its case with a case humidifier when not playing it. Don’t hang it on a wall or keep it on a stand if the humidity is not consistent.
