Humidity, or no humidity, that is the question...

Fmmahoganyrush

Fmmahoganyrush

Pleads the 5th...
OK guys... what's the deal. I get mixed signals when it comes to humidity and the acoustic guitar. "They" sell things to stick in your case to protect acoustic guitars from humidity... ..."They" warn of the damage that humidity can inflict on acoustic guitars... ...then dimb ass "Me" goes into the "Look, but you best not fucking touch or We'll cut your balls off" room at Guitar Center, and "They" have a room humidifier set right in front of the top-of-the-line Martin's, Taylor's, Larravee's (You get the picture) blowing steam right at these things. I mean, it's not like they have a wet bulb/dry bulb back there to monitor the exact atmospheric condition of the room (do they?)... ...Is it like cholesterol, there's good cholesterol, and bad cholesterol... ...Somebody help me out here..... :confused:
 
For my 2 cents worth I have to use a humidifier, I live in an extreme climate and it rains occasionally, we had rain this week, first in eleven months. If I dont use my humidifier the wood shrinks, so much so that the frets can protude out of the side of the fretboard. This happened to my maple fretboard strat, it scared the hell out of me and I have stuck to humidifiers ever since and not had any problems with my other guitars.
Hope thats of some help.
Incidentally all I use is a plastic tube with sponge that I soak and leave in the case or inside the body of my acoustic.
 
40% Relative Humidity is your friend

Wood is hygroscopic. It acts like a sponge. When first cut, it is dripping with moisture. As it dries, the free water within the cell bodies is lost first and the moisture content of the wood drops drastically. As it begins to season, it loses bound water from within the cell walls. As they lose moisture, they deform because they require water to maintain structure. The wood shrinks.

Sooner or later it will reach an equilibrium with the environment and will be stable enough to build with. It is that equilibrium, and the equilibrium moisture content of the wood in the guitar, that must be maintained over the instrument's life to avoid warping or splitting.

When an instrument is in a high humidity environment, it's cell walls will begin to pick up moisture. The belly bulges and the action will start to get high. When the instrument is in a very low humidity environment (northeast in winter = VERY VERY low relative humidity) the cell walls lose remaining moisture and continue to shrink. Because the guitar has been glued together, the top cannot shrink. So it splits.

Lesson learned? High humidity can be a nuisance. Low humidity can destroy the instrument.

What to do? Pretty easy, really. You maintain the environment around the guitar in a stable, 30% - 50% relative humidity range and avoid radical drops in humidity. You can do that with guitar humidifiers, but the best way is to keep a room humidifier in the same room the guitar lives in. Keep the instruments in open cases or hang them on a wall during really cold spells, and get a cheap hygrometer to keep you informed ablut the humidity. Generally, if the room is comfortable for you, it will be fine for your guitar.

Clive's observations about sharp fret ends is right on the money - the fingerboard is not sealed and can take on and lose humidity pretty easily. It's the first sign that things are getting dry.
 
OK.. next question... ..lessee if I can get a synapse to fire here...

Is there a "point of no return" for giving a guitar "humidity treatment"? I have a couple of acoustics (nothing big, just simple 'ole guitars). The faces have pulled a little at the bridge, thus messing up the action a little (although too much for a simple neck adjustment). Would beginning a humidity regiment on these candidates do anything in the way of getting the wood back into the condition it prefers(where it was originally), and bring these things right back to where they belong? (I know... ...Fat Chance:rolleyes: )
 
Well, depends on the amount of the deformation and the cause. If they dried out and there is a split or a glue line failure, they may return to position but the failure still has to be repaired. If they swelled because they got "wet" they will probably return to position without incident. My guitar is a handful in the winter - I have scars from sharp fret ends. In the summer, you can see the distortion on the top and trace where the braces are. But it always goes back to where it needs to be sooner or later.
 
Thanx guys!



Shit... ...now I have to design plans for a walk-in Humidor... ...well, at least I'll have a place to keep those secret tobacco products stamped "La Habana":eek:
 
now that reminds me, subject change. We don't have one of them BIG music stores close by, but a place in N.C. is a small copy of one. They do a good job too. They have them "rooms" Tom is talking about, with the high end stuff in controlled climates. well I went in the guitar room a while back, with a friend who was taking his keyboard there for repair, and they had a Gibson mando in a case all to itself. Inclosed and locked, with a little sign saying ask for help to look at it. It was a clear glass case. And the mando was set up on a guitar stand. Now if you know a F5 model mando won't sit on a guitar stand, so they have it hanging from the top of the stand. We were looking at it and noticed that it was turned a little and just hanging by one tuning peg. I think you could have blown it off with a sneeze. I went and told some dude about it and he looked and said he was gonna get someone with a key to fix it back. Anyway we went on about our buisness. We went back about 3 weeks later to get the keyboard and the mando was still there just hanging on that one peg. It was the Gibson Sam Bush model (6500.00). Man. These folks must be stupid. I wanted to knock it off and see if I could get a discount. he he he. Just alittle story.
 
I live in Phoenix and had a somewhat nice Taylor 710. The top cracked in the middle of the night and scared the shit out of me, made me wake up, I thought it fell off the stand but it was there, I didn't see it until the morning. That killed the resale a bit.
 
I've got a 25-year-old Yamaha acoustic that's NEVER seen a humidifier in it's life. It's been stored in it's case for some years, sat out in a cool, damp basement for some years, and sat out in a warm, dry room in a condo for some years.

I've left it in my car for 9 hours at a stretch in temperatures ranging from 25 degrees to 100 degrees farenheit.

This guitar is still perfect.

Perfect neck, perfect body, and plays better than new.

Guitar humidifiers?....yeah, right. :rolleyes:

Only if you live in Arizona or a similar hot and dry climate.
 
Either your guitar has a laminated top or it was built with a flexible epoxy.:D

Hot cars are worse than cold winters. It only takes about half an hour in a hot car to ruin an instrument. It's like leaving your dog in the car. The heat will kill 'em both.
 
I have 2 acoustics, a Martin DCME Road Series and a Lowden O-10. Both are out of the cases all the time so I'm motivated to play more. I keep them in my computer room with the door closed and the humidifier runs for 2 hours, 4 times per day, keeps the humidity around 40-50% which is recommended by the Lowden factory in Ireland. In the summer, it's usally easy to keep the humidity at that level, tougher in the winter, since the home heating system dries out the air. You have to be careful with solid top guitars or the wood could develop cracks and split.
 
I have a hydrometer on my wall and I try to keep the humidity ~40%, at least, in the winter.


Just this past week I have put 25 gallons of water into the air to maintain 40% RH


that also keeps static electricity down which will damage sensitive electronics...


before I got the humidifier the RH was at 28% and when I went to pet my cat I saw a big bolt shock the cats ear and gave a yelp...

So... im doing it for the cat and the guitars :)

mics dont like humidity so keep them in there cases


I should also mention that its much more comfortable with an RH at or above 40% ... ahhhhh it feels so good when it rains :) if you have arthritis humidity isnt your friend though, so different situations for different people:)
 
Just to clarify something...

When I said I left my guitar in my car with temperatures ranging from 25 to 100 degrees, I meant "the temperature in the car", not the tempurature outside.
If it was above 80 degrees outside and sunny, I wouldn't leave it in there, even though both my acoustics have a hard case.

In the winter I just throw a blanket over the case and it's fine. ;)
 
i try to maintain roughly 50% humidity in my place in the winter, for comfort's sake-that said, i only have cheap acoustics, and they haven't seemed to care. the worst thing weather has done to one of my guitars is on my explorer, rusting the screws on the pickguard one winter, and on on my epiphone, rusting the strings one night from being outside in the summer when the temperature hit the dewpoint. lesson: keep the instrument in the case, and wipe the strings down with fast fret. my strings last reasonably well until they break now.
 
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