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Old 08-28-2011, 09:19 AM
ericmeyer4 ericmeyer4 is offline
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Default Playing in low humidity conditions

I know that my acoustics like to be in 45-55% humidity and I can easily do this when I am storing them in their cases. However, the RH in the house is usually a different story. This winter, in the house, the average relative humidity was around 35%. I have the spare bedroom setup as my music room and I did run a humidifier and providing no one opens the door I could get it up to about 40% RH. Most of the time I kept them in their cases or if I did bring them out it wasn't for very long because I was worried about damaging them. Ideally I would like to add a humidity regulating system to the house, but I'm living in a rental and I'm broke so that isn't an option.

How damaging would it be to my guitars if I brought them out of their cases to play in low RH conditions?
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Old 08-28-2011, 09:45 AM
Ilovetaylors Ilovetaylors is offline
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for a few hours, shouldn't hurt the guitar at all.

I remember ljguitars saying he keeps his guitars in 35% humidity or so and it's perfectly fine.

but I wouldn't keep it in the long term.
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Old 08-29-2011, 08:42 AM
hezagzr hezagzr is offline
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Originally Posted by Ilovetaylors View Post
for a few hours, shouldn't hurt the guitar at all.

I remember ljguitars saying he keeps his guitars in 35% humidity or so and it's perfectly fine.

but I wouldn't keep it in the long term.
I live in the Denver area and our humidity is sometimes extremely low. I use a Kyser humidfier on the guitar (Recording King RDC-36) when not in use, but when playing for an hour or two, the dry conditions don't seem to hurt it.
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Old 08-29-2011, 08:46 AM
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Originally Posted by ericmeyer4 View Post
...How damaging would it be to my guitars if I brought them out of their cases to play in low RH conditions?
Hi eric…

I've lived in low Relative Humidity (which hits single digits outside in winter) and our home is kept at 35% most of the time. We've lived here with the guitars for over 36 years now without cracks or any other humidity related damage.

You don't need to be concerned about playing you guitar all day long if it goes back into the case at night. Guitars are affected by humidity (or lack of it) in days/weeks not minutes/hours.


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Old 08-29-2011, 11:17 AM
MarkC MarkC is offline
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Hi eric…

I've lived in low Relative Humidity (which hits single digits outside in winter) and our home is kept at 35% most of the time. We've lived here with the guitars for over 36 years now without cracks or any other humidity related damage.

You don't need to be concerned about playing you guitar all day long if it goes back into the case at night. Guitars are affected by humidity (or lack of it) in days/weeks not minutes/hours.


My experience has been similar to Larry's. I live in Chicago and in the winter, with radiant heat, the hygrometers in my home stay below the 20% mark through the heating season. I keep the cases in the 45% to 50% range. On a day when I know I'll be playing a lot I'll keep one or both of my guitars out on stands all day and then put them away in the evening. No adverse effects on the health of my instruments yet. I don't know how fast wood is supposed to respond to changes in humidity, but I generally don't even notice any change in the action of the guitars when left out for a day in such conditions.

Mark
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Old 08-29-2011, 11:50 AM
Big.Al Big.Al is offline
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What I DO notice in dry wihter conditions, is that my guitar will start to go sharp after it's out of the humidified case. On gig day, I try to leave the guitar out for a few hours ahead of time. It seems to stabilize the tuning a bit. I play at church and it is difficult to re-tune mid-service, so tuning stability is especially important for me.
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Old 08-29-2011, 01:00 PM
Glennwillow Glennwillow is offline
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Hi Eric,

It sounds to me like you are doing a good job of humidifying your guitar(s). It takes a while, a coupe of days, for low RH to draw the moisture out of wood, so short periods of time out of the case should not be a problem.

Regards, Glenn
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Old 08-30-2011, 07:58 AM
ericmeyer4 ericmeyer4 is offline
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Thank you for the replies! I'm a bit of a worrier when it comes to my instruments. Looks like they are going to get a bit more playing time now.
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Old 08-30-2011, 08:49 AM
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Thank you for the replies! I'm a bit of a worrier when it comes to my instruments. Looks like they are going to get a bit more playing time now.
Hi eric…
Sometimes I wish we could dial back the clock to the days when people out in our prairie regions lived in houses without central heating, and if you left a glass of water on the table overnight in the winter, in the morning there would be ice in it.

Thousands of guitars survived that era, and they didn't know anything about humidifying (which explains crack repairs in many older/vintage instruments).

A little regular concern and attention to humidifying our instruments goes a lot further than forgotten obsession. I prefer to play my guitars, not worry over them, but I did go through some obsessive times too early on.

These days - not so much. And my wife is enjoying my music more since I've calmed.


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