Leave your rosewood Martin in the case or out on a stand?

[DHart]

For convenience, I have all of my electric and acoustic guitars on stands inside a humidified walk-in closet. Makes it super easy to grab whatever I want to play, quickly and conveniently. (Relative humidity where I live is typically around 20%.)

My only concern is with my Martin OM-28V, which smells so incredibly good that I worry about all the smell going away soon (unless I confine it to its case).

So... do you think my OM-28V will lose that incredible smell soon by sitting on a stand in the closet? (I think it already has.) Should I keep it in the case to prolong the aroma? Will the guitar age better out of its case?

These are important questions for the owner of a fine acoustic guitar!

[ChalkLitIScream]

Ive also wondered about this, but have been too lazy to keep it in the case, so on a stand it sits.

Got a solid yamaha with rosewood b/s that has still has retained its lovely aroma over the course of a year now. Positive to say that the aroma is just as strong now as it was last december. Plus, that guitar was hanging out in the open where I got it for atleast a few months before that too.

IF you really want a good wiff, put a soundhole cover on it for a few hours, take it off and just inhaleee!

[andyspur]

As much as I like the smell of my guitars, they are all out on stands or hangers where I can get to them. Luckily humidity in my area is generally around 45-50%, so that's not an issue for me. Humidity being outside certain limits would be the only reason I'd case my guitars up at home. I don't think the smell of my OM is as strong as when I bought it in 2013 though, and that has spent most of its life outside of its case..

[DHart]

Originally Posted by ChalkLitIScream

Ive also wondered about this, but have been too lazy to keep it in the case, so on a stand it sits.

Got a solid yamaha with rosewood b/s that has still has retained its lovely aroma over the course of a year now. Positive to say that the aroma is just as strong now as it was last december. Plus, that guitar was hanging out in the open where I got it for atleast a few months before that too.

IF you really want a good wiff, put a soundhole cover on it for a few hours, take it off and just inhaleee!

There ya go! Why didn’t I think of that. A sound hole cover! Brilliant.

[1neeto]

I guess I’m not alone with the sound hole sniffing. [emoji23]

[Wade Hampton]

Originally Posted by 1neeto

I guess I’m not alone with the sound hole sniffing. [emoji23]

No, we're not the only mammals that like to sniff things, but our canine friends are generally more interested in the aperture where the endpin gets wedged in...

DHart, the soundhole cover might work to help keep the wood scent more noticeable in the body cavity, but you'll need to avoid any that allow air exchange, like those gorgeous Lute Hole soundhole covers:

Lute Hole Soundhole Covers

What you need is something more like this:

Regular Soundhole Covers

Hope this helps.


Wade Hampton Miller

[Kip Carter]

The solution would be for Martin to start selling NeuGitFiddle. A simple squirt bottle with application nozzle to spray beyond the stings on to the inside of the back.
An application once a month would maintain that New Martin smell and also provide slight therapeutic humidification factor to your instruments!

[Silly Moustache]

All my guitars have some sort of fragrance but it isn't that important to me, as whenever I change strings I polish them with a stuff designed for antique furniture (no silicone) which all smell great.

More important is whether you leave you guitars in cases or on display.
I wish I had a house large enough to have all my guitars on display in a special "guitar room" ...but I don't. Also I tend to play guitar relatively little at home (illness this year has changed matters a little) but normally I keep two - a 00 and an archtop in my little office, and one on a stand in the lounge.

The rest are in cases and the cases have a label on them saying what's inside.

[Steadfastly]

Leave it out. I'm sure there is a rosewood scent you can spray it with if you need to keep smelling it.

[ChrisE]

I noticed when I installed a pickup in my D-18 that I could really smell the mahogany when I drilled out the end pin.

What you could do is drill a new hole in your guitar body every few months to keep that fresh smell coming.

[Marshall]

Line the closet with cedar. Then your guitars (and your clothes) will always smell of good wood.


20% is not good. I hope you mean that you are humidifying the closet to a higher value.

[varmonter]

Rosewood in particular has a nice fragrance.
To answer your questions if your room is humidified
It should be fine leaving it out. And yes leaving
It out will lessen the time it takes to outgas your
Guitar . That's simple physics .So the rubber soundhole plug is a good
Idea. Me personally I don't leave mine out.
My house in winter is about 15% RH so no way..
My cases help keep the humidity/smell in.

[Orfeas]

My guitar is always on a stand inside the living room. Humidity indoors range in the winter from 35 to 42/44. A year or so instrument that it does not smell like it was when I opened the case the first time.

[ChrisE]

I'm glad my rosewood guitar doesn't smell the way it did when I got it.

When I got it it had lived in its case for about 15 years without being opened. It had all kinds of weird things inside. I used almost every method I saw on the interweb to clean it out (rice, baking soda, dryer sheets, etc.--all at the same time) and now it smells fine.

I almost used to choke whenever I played it before but now it's as fresh as a summer breeze.

[Mr Fingers]

I realize this thread is a joke. Play it, don't smell it. Some of us non-luthiers do enough repair/restore activity to get enough of that sense experience of working with wood. To be honest, I wonder how many of this group would really want to be smelling rosewood all the time. I used to like it until I went through a period of doing lots of work with it, at which point the smell started to morph into a... stink. But the combination of smells -- finish plus different woods -- that make up a complete guitar... oh yeah. But think of the tradeoff: you get to see it all the time, rather than burying it in a case.