How to keep a guitar body from getting warped?

[Rinaz]

Hi,
Not like the neck we can have a neck reset to make it like new but I've seen some guitar bodies that get warped or curved whatever you describe it overtime. What do I need to do to keep it as straight as possible and not getting warped overtime? Is keeping it in the case helps? I've read somewhere on this forum there's a Larrivee guitar that has been kept in its case for few months and it's got warped. It was an old guitar though (sorry Larrivee).

Plus another problem is that when I play open D string with my bare finger (not nail) there's rattling sound coming from the bridge. it's lessen when I play notes and disappear at about fret 3-4. I'm not sure how to fix it. Shouldn't have cut my nails

If someone has experience with these problem please share I don't want to see my baby get warped . Thanks a lot and very appreciate your comment!

Rinaz

[jseth]

Well, first of all, the high percentage of acoustic guitars NEVER get any warping with the body... get a good quality guitar and take decent care of it and you shouldn't ahve any problems with the body woods moving around...

You should NOT hear any "rattling" from anywhere in the guitar when playing any of the notes on it... something's a bit off with the guitar you mentioned if it's rattling or buzzing. The sounds come from many different places; even though it sounds like it's coming from the bridge, it is likely coming from somewhere else (though not always).

I have a couple hand built guitars that are 40+ and near 40 years old, and there's no warping of the bodies... and these puppies have been "rode hard and put up wet", as the saying goes... you don't have to baby a guitar to have it last for a long, long time!

You DO want to start with a good one, though...

[charles Tauber]

Wood is one of numerous materials that will permanently deform when subject to continuous forces over a long period of time. The magnitude of those forces is much less than what would cause the material to break. This deformation is referred to as "cold creep".

Guitars are a compromise between strength and responsiveness. If one built a guitar like a tank, it would be more than strong enough to resist creep, but wouldn't sound like much: responsiveness is sacrificed. If one built a guitar only for responsiveness, it would break under string tension. The guitar maker is trying to walk a fine line between making the guitar strong enough to last for a sufficiently long period of time while also keeping the instrument sufficiently responsive. Once made, the strength/responsiveness ratio is pretty much set.

What a guitar owner can do is to keep the instrument within the range of what it was designed to do. That includes temperature, humidity and string tension. Most guitars are made around 72 F and a relative humidity of 40% to 45%. If a guitar was designed for light gauge strings, don't put heavy gauge strings on it: if it was designed for nylon strings, don't put steel strings on it. Thus, keep the temperature and humidity in a safe range and use string tensions for which the instrument was designed. Beyond that, the guitar owner doesn't have a lot of influence on the structural longevity of the instrument.

[tippy5]

Traveling with an acoustic in a car can damage light builds. Cars get above 100 degrees quickly.

[Dbone]

If you leave a guitar in a case it must still be properly humidified and kept at the right temperature. Just being in the case guarantees nothing if bad environmental conditions can still equalize into the case. Look after the guitar and it will be fine. Neglect it and it will not be fine. It’s pretty simple really, yet neglect of guitars is pretty darn common.

A good way to make sure you are doing alright is to monitor with SensorPush or similar technology.

Best of luck

[phavriluk]

'Warped' where and how? A guitar body doesn't have a straight line on it, so what prompted the discussion?

[Dbone]

Originally Posted by phavriluk

'Warped' where and how? A guitar body doesn't have a straight line on it, so what prompted the discussion?

Literal much? ;-0 lol

[backdoc]

Are you talking about the top getting a "belly" around the bridge area? Most guitars when strung have a little bit of that anyway. As others said, stringing it with heavier strings than recommended for the guitar can worsen that. I've never really heard of any other parts of the body warping.

[bufflehead]

I had a Guild D-25 that developed severe belly over a 30+ year period where it was my only guitar and was gigged constantly. I lived in some pretty dry places over that time--Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona--and never heard of needing to humidify a guitar. And the guitar travelled a lot by air. It finally got to a point where it would have cost more to repair it than to replace it, which is when I finally got the Martin I'd wanted all along.