Guitars in dry climates…

[Bluenose]

Yes I do have a C/F guitar that I call my winter travel guitar but as stated above by Charley Bman, keeping your wooden guitars humidified in the dry season takes a bit of diligence but is really not that hard. Besides it's unhealthy for you as well as your guitars to live in an environment with relative humidity that's less than 30%.

[Llewlyn]

Originally Posted by EasilyAmused

He has a guitar collection worth more than my house, with vintage Martins and Gibsons, and a few Collings. He says “these good guitars are all gonna out live us, and they are all gonna get cracked at some point, so just let them dry and crack, then get the crack repaired and it’ll be ready to be stable as long as you live here.”

Probably he just let them become unusuable then buy new ones from those who humidify :-)

Ll.

[Mandobart]

I've shared my story multiple times of growing up in a very dry, high elevation (7000') town in northern NM, where my orchestra friends and I had never heard of humidity control and never suffered for this ignorance. Others have shared their stories of exactly opposite experience - they tried to do everything right and still suffered damage they attribute to low humidity.

I've taken a couple guitars and fiddle from NM to San Diego to Chicago to Orlando to Idaho Falls, back to San Diego, then western Washington and finally to eastern Washington. All with no conscious humidity control.

Like the OP's story, this is just my anectodal experience. Nothing close to a controlled experiment. We're unlikely to ever see a documented, controlled, statistically significant experiment that can accurately account for all the variables.

I choose to keep my couple dozen wooden stringed instruments hanging on the wall in my climate controlled basement music room, with thermostat controlled floor heat and humidistat controlled humidifiers, keeping all the instruments hanging on the wall at 70 F and 45 - 50% relative humidity.

I also choose to take them camping, to festivals, to outdoor gigs, jams in friend's yards, etc.

[sonic romp]

Originally Posted by EasilyAmused

But I was recently talking to an older musician who had been playing bluegrass, and a lot of serious acoustic music in this past of the world longer than I’ve been alive. He has a guitar collection worth more than my house, with vintage Martins and Gibsons, and a few Collings. He says “these good guitars are all gonna out live us, and they are all gonna get cracked at some point, so just let them dry and crack, then get the crack repaired and it’ll be ready to be stable as long as you live here.”

Even older dudes with vintage guitars are lazy.
Whether playing or caring for them, do the work. It ain’t much.

[printer2]

A few years ago I built a number of bodies, I let the humidity get down to the teens over winter. Half cracked, half did not. I wanted the guitars I built to remain whole so I watched them and where the cracks developed.



Then for the heck of it I built two bodies in 20% RH. Normally we build an arc into the back and top, when the humidity goes down the wood shrinks and goes flat or concave. When there is no more give in the wood it cracks. Rather than build an arc into the top and back I braced them flat. The thought was that when the humidity rose to normal levels the top and back developed an arc. When the RH went back up the guitars tops and backs did bow out. I do not plan on building for low RH's but if need be at least I know it can be done.

[Cecil6243]

I've been using Oasis's humidifier which also tells me the humidity and temp when the guitar is in the case. I almost ruined my new guitar a few years ago being ignorant of what low humidity can do to it -- here in Indiana in the winter -- when the furnace is going full bore.

Slides between the strings the guitar while in the case :



Side view:




Diassembled showing the parts to it which includes the sponge:



I haven't been able to afford a hard case but the soft shell case seems to be going O.K. as far as retaining humidity But the gig bag Martin makes is a more solid soft shell than most.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Mandobart

I've shared my story multiple times of growing up in a very dry, high elevation (7000') town in northern NM, where my orchestra friends and I had never heard of humidity control and never suffered for this ignorance. Others have shared their stories of exactly opposite experience - they tried to do everything right and still suffered damage they attribute to low humidity.

I've taken a couple guitars and fiddle from NM to San Diego to Chicago to Orlando to Idaho Falls, back to San Diego, then western Washington and finally to eastern Washington. All with no conscious humidity control.

Like the OP's story, this is just my anectodal experience. Nothing close to a controlled experiment. We're unlikely to ever see a documented, controlled, statistically significant experiment that can accurately account for all the variables.

I choose to keep my couple dozen wooden stringed instruments hanging on the wall in my climate controlled basement music room, with thermostat controlled floor heat and humidistat controlled humidifiers, keeping all the instruments hanging on the wall at 70 F and 45 - 50% relative humidity.

I also choose to take them camping, to festivals, to outdoor gigs, jams in friend's yards, etc.

Yes you have posted many times claiming "very dry. But please allow me to offer some observations

A quick google for example shows the overall average RH in NM is 57.33 % (very acceptable for guitars)
And the RH in say Taos NM, at 7000 ft is 40% (low side of acceptable )
Now to be sure the RH seems to fluctuate pretty drastically and quickly But just maybe overall not really as dry as you and those you grew up with, thought it to be ?

Below is a link to a chart from the National Weather Service of the Taos Airport for just the last 3 day period
Where the RH goes from 10 % to 80% in hours ( wow) pretty drastic me thinks

And then also consider for example if you and orchestra mates did like the orchestra kids I grew up with, kept their instruments cases when not playing them, then it appears that over all, they would likely stay at the 40 % average and thus be a significant factor in not having damage occur. __just suggesting an objective possible alternate observation to your anecdotal supposition

https://www.weather.gov/wrh/timeseri...pview=standard

[KevWind]

opps double post

[Mandobart]

Originally Posted by KevWind

Yes you have posted many times claiming "very dry. But please allow me to offer some observations

A quick google for example shows the overall average RH in NM is 57.33 % (very acceptable for guitars)
And the RH in say Taos NM, at 7000 ft is 40% (low side of acceptable )
Now to be sure the RH seems to fluctuate pretty drastically and quickly But just maybe overall not really as dry as you and those you grew up with, thought it to be ?

Below is a link to a chart from the National Weather Service of the Taos Airport for just the last 3 day period
Where the RH goes from 10 % to 80% in hours ( wow) pretty drastic me thinks

And then also consider for example if you and orchestra mates did like the orchestra kids I grew up with, kept their instruments cases when not playing them, then it appears that over all, they would likely stay at the 40 % average and thus be a significant factor in not having damage occur. __just suggesting an objective possible alternate observation to your anecdotal supposition

Day to day RH anywhere (besides a temperate coastal place) can vary quite a bit. We absolutely had single digit RH days in the winter, just like anywhere in the intermountain American West. You know it's plenty dry when you get a visible static shock whenever you touch metal, when your skin is cracking and people with normally wavy or curly hair have a completely straight hairdo.

In NM in the monsoon season (July and August) there are typically thunderstorms every afternoon. Those 100% RH days sure impact the average, but don't raise the single digit RH in the winter one bit. Guitars and people are affected by the RH right now, not averaged over a year.

My current locale has RH that varies from around 15% in the winter to 70% in the summer. Of course it's 100% when it rains.

We had orchestra first thing in the morning (07:30). The rest of the day the violins and violas were cased in lockers on the outside western wall. The cellos and basses were in bags in similar lockers or against the same wall. Until 3:30 pm for the kids who took their instruments home every day. The big guns often spent the entire school year in that room, day and night. They weren't there at all during the summer monsoons though.

[Cecil6243]

Originally Posted by Mandobart

Day to day RH anywhere (besides a temperate coastal place) can vary quite a bit. We absolutely had single digit RH days in the winter, just like anywhere in the intermountain American West. You know it's plenty dry when you get a visible static shock whenever you touch metal, when your skin is cracking and people with normally wavy or curly hair have a completely straight hairdo.

In NM in the monsoon season (July and August) there are typically thunderstorms every afternoon. Those 100% RH days sure impact the average, but don't raise the single digit RH in the winter one bit. Guitars and people are affected by the RH right now, not averaged over a year.

My current locale has RH that varies from around 15% in the winter to 70% in the summer. Of course it's 100% when it rains.

We had orchestra first thing in the morning (07:30). The rest of the day the violins and violas were cased in lockers on the outside western wall. The cellos and basses were in bags in similar lockers or against the same wall. Until 3:30 pm for the kids who took their instruments home every day. The big guns often spent the entire school year in that room, day and night. They weren't there at all during the summer monsoons though.

Yes RH can vary a lot depending on the time of year, weather, and even time of day!