Humidification - checking where you stand

[uncle fester]

Hi folks - is there a way to check if a guitar is too dry / wet / or just right? This is more out of curiosity than anything else. It's been a dry winter here - I've kept the guitar pretty much between 40 and 45%, but it did drop to the 30s on occasion. I wouldn't expect I'd have a concern, but wondered if there was a way to do a check?

 

Thanks for any input... rgds - billroy

[fsharp]

Hi Billroy

I don't believe there is any easy way to directly measure the moisture content of the wood. If the guitar is too wet or too dry you would see evidence-

Cracks, swelling up (or shrinking down) around the sound hole, frets that were sticking out beyond the edge of the neck ... I think there are lots of resources out there that tell you what to look for.

I think probably the simplest way to know what's going on is to stick a humidity gauge in your case and close it up for a while.

[j45nick]

Probably the best thing to do is keep a good-quality hygrometer (or two) in the space where you keep your guitars. If the guitars are kept in their cases, that will buffer them to some extent from swings in ambient relative humidity. You should be pretty much able to monitor your guitars by keeping an eye on the room humidity. The actual moisture content of the wood in your guitars is much lower than the relative humidity of their environment, any way you look at it.

 

This is something I've never obsessed about, but I also don't live where houses are heated and bone-dry in the winter months.

[uncle fester]

Thank you both, I don't believe I have a problem, I do keep a hygrometer in the office with the guitars so feel I'm good - but was wondering if there was a way to check, belts and suspenders eh.

 

Thank you again - rgds - b.

[OldCowboy]

Probably the best thing to do is keep a good-quality hygrometer (or two) in the space where you keep your guitars. If the guitars are kept in their cases, that will buffer them to some extent from swings in ambient relative humidity. You should be pretty much able to monitor your guitars by keeping an eye on the room humidity. The actual moisture content of the wood in your guitars is much lower than the relative humidity of their environment, any way you look at it.

 

This is something I've never obsessed about, but I also don't live where houses are heated and bone-dry in the winter months.

Keeping the "room" at @ 45% - more or less - in the winter heating months works OK, although nothing's really perfect unless you can fine tune your climate control - and most of us ordinary mortals don't have the luxury of that resource. Sometimes I wonder how my younger, more oblivious self got away with not thinking about it and still encountering few, if any, issues with my instruments. Dumb luck, maybe? I was dumb and lucky....

[j45nick]

Keeping the "room" at @ 45% - more or less - in the winter heating months works OK, although nothing's really perfect unless you can fine tune your climate control - and most of us ordinary mortals don't have the luxury of that resource. Sometimes I wonder how my younger, more oblivious self got away with not thinking about it and still encountering few, if any, issues with my instruments. Dumb luck, maybe? I was dumb and lucky....

 

Yeah, dumb luck, for sure. I kept my old J-45 on a boat in New England year-round back in the 1970's, and then left it in an unheated storage unit ashore from 1996 until I retrieved it in 2003 and it moved with me to Florida.

 

Somehow, it survived, although it did develop a bit of lacquer checking over that 30-year period. So did I, for that matter. Maybe that's normal...

[kidblast]

You can buy some meters that read the moister in the wood, but you need to know a bit about how to read and apply to make it not drive you nuts. If your room is in a safe zone, and the guitars are in there, I think you can sleep at night.

 

The Taylor Web site has a pdf that explains some of the "signs" to look for too. There's some reference points you can line up when sighting down the neck,, if you line these up and the plane of the neck lines up with the top of bridge, at least you know the top hasn't sunk (or swollen - too much moister)

 

I know my house is dry,, so I keep em cased, and humidified in the case. I have a few readers I place in the cases to tell me how close I am. Once SPRING comes, things should start to ease off with the dryness. In central mass, as you know we're still waiting.

[dhanners623]

When i lived in Minnesota, our rule of thumb was that you start humidifying when the leaves start falling and stop humidifying when the trees start blooming. I could generally tell if I felt along the edge of the fretboard. If I could feel frets, I knew I needed to humidify.

 

Living in the desert of Kuwait, I humidify all the time. The guitars are kept in their cases when not played, and I use Kyser soundhole humidifiers. I have switched out the sponges in them, though. I used to use tap water, which is a mistake in this part of the world. One day I noticed some black specks through one of the holes in the humidifier and took off the cover and the sponge was covered with mold. I immediately checked my other one. Same thing.

 

Now the sponges get Aquafina....

[OldCowboy]

When i lived in Minnesota, our rule of thumb was that you start humidifying when the leaves start falling and stop humidifying when the trees start blooming. I could generally tell if I felt along the edge of the fretboard. If I could feel frets, I knew I needed to humidify.

 

Living in the desert of Kuwait, I humidify all the time. The guitars are kept in their cases when not played, and I use Kyser soundhole humidifiers. I have switched out the sponges in them, though. I used to use tap water, which is a mistake in this part of the world. One day I noticed some black specks through one of the holes in the humidifier and took off the cover and the sponge was covered with mold. I immediately checked my other one. Same thing.

 

Now the sponges get Aquafina....

I use Kysers sometimes, and they're not bad, especially if I use distilled water. And, yes, early fall to late spring is prime time for adding humidity.

[Cougar]

...is there a way to check if a guitar is too dry / wet / or just right? .... I've kept the guitar pretty much between 40 and 45%....

I could generally tell if I felt along the edge of the fretboard. If I could feel frets, I knew I needed to humidify.

Well, if you keep your guitar between 40 and 45%, then the guitar should be "just right." As dhanners and fsharp mentioned, an easy way to tell if a guitar is too dry is to check for "fret sprout" - the fretboard shrinks due to the dryness, but the frets don't shrink - they'll stick out a little.

[Jinder]

My room shifts between 40% or so during the day when the window is open, up to 60-65% at night when being slept in. Any higher than that and the dehumidifier comes into play, but living close to sea level and the coast, it's fairly balanced and the only potential issue is with a touch more humidity than is ideal.

[Murph]

I'm for it.

 

Up to a point.

[uncle fester]

As dhanners and fsharp mentioned, an easy way to tell if a guitar is too dry is to check for "fret sprout" - the fretboard shrinks due to the dryness, but the frets don't shrink - they'll stick out a little.

 

I did my inspection and do not have fret sprout, but I did notice the neck is very flat. From all the videos I've been watching, I thought the were supposed to be curved concave just a little bit. Having said that, it looks like the truss rod could use a little tweak.

 

Going from winter to spring, I guess it makes sense an adjustment may be needed, but how often typically would folks be making truss rod adjustments, I can't believe it's a frequent occurrence?

[kidblast]

If there's no notes fretting out, leave it. I personally go for as straight (little to no relief) as possible.