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Old 01-17-2020, 07:41 AM
hermithollow hermithollow is offline
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It is important to monitor and regulate the relative humidity when building a guitar because that gives it some resilience to humidity fluctuations. A properly built instrument should be able to "live" in RH ranges from 30 to 80 percent without severe problems. If you check hourly RH changes you will find that it can vary by 50% points or more within a 24 hour period, and often does. Guitars survived for over a hundred years before central air and humidity control existed.
Because makers are building lightly built "responsive" guitars from less than well aged materials humidity control has become more of a concern. Another problem is with the modern heating of houses in the winter to warmer levels than formerly the RH can drop into the teens or single digits unless supplemental humidity is added.
Still, guitars should be able to handle RH levels from 30 to 80 percent without a problem, so ultra tight control of RH should not be a concern for the average owner.
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