BluesKing777 Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 (edited) We have had over 2 weeks of high humidity (95-99% some days) in southern Australia - storms and cyclones hit the coast on the other side of the country 5000 kms away and then seem to unravel and spread unsettled humid conditions all the way across the country - and let me tell you my guitars sound awful - out come the resonators and the ladder braced Waterloo to cut through the soup. It may be over - the StewMac thermo/hydro on my desk says 46%/70 degrees(21 C). I will have to take each guitar out the backyard and wring the water out! The north part of this country is like this most of the time - their guitars would all sound different if they moved here in normal weather! I'm sure they would have to play harder and with a big pick to get anything. Must be the same in Florida/Gulf Coast in summer. And while I am whining, I also cricked my neck muscle yesterday - improving today but a little thing like that and everything stops guitar wise! BluesKing777. Edited February 20, 2020 by BluesKing777 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uncle fester Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 sorry to hear it bk, heal quickly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jedzep Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 (edited) I can remember only a few days where it got so swampy I noticed a radical drop off in resonance, but they were conditions that sneaked in before I fired up my battery of air conditioners. It's hard to regain the dryness once a heavy duty humid front takes hold. Sounds like you can swim in that air BK, but I just kick in the extra 20 bucks a month for electric all summer and fight off the thick air. I'm surprised you don't keep one room cool and dry as a refuge, if not just for human comfort, given the predictable weather. How'd you crick your neck, staring at the 'Banner' Gibson thread on the UMGF? Edited February 20, 2020 by jedzep Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoSoxBiker Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 10-gram silica gel packs. I should have gotten bigger ones. Cheap in the 50-100 pack online. Clip a few onto your strings, 1 or 2 in the headstock and neck chamber. Change out every few days until the problem is gone. Do this in the case, obviously. I use less in maintenance mode. I've got two maples, the Taylor will get thumpy and woofy in a heart-beat. But when it's perfect, it's PERFECT. This is the way I keep it close. The Gibson maple(SJ) will change to lesser extremes, but will change. The Rosewood and 'Hog are more consistent, though action is still affected somewhat. I live in the mid-Atlantic region of the US in North Carolina. People from Florida come up and ***** about the humidity. People like me move down here from where jedzep is from (me = 4 years in RS on 20) and cry the Blues during the 3rd week of June when the thick air rolls in for the summer. It seemed to get easier after the first 10-15 years. It's that kind of bad. Tornadoes one week, snow the next. Just redamndiculous. I digress. Anyhow, I have no use for the d'Addario system. Not extreme enough to keep up here. There's the charcoal things, too, but I found it to lack repair-level qualities. It, and the sound-hole sponge humidifiers for the opposite direction, are what allows me to keep mine on a stand for a week at a time without worrying that it will get too far. (It's D-41 week downstairs and Hummingbird week upstairs in the studio. Life is good.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluesKing777 Posted February 20, 2020 Author Share Posted February 20, 2020 (edited) I have the Humidipaks in all my guitar cases with sensitive guits. Just a little bit of wishful thinking hoping they keep the inside of a case at 47-48% when outside is 99% (they might just do that in the case, but then it is a bit hard to play them for a hour or so, in the case!). Nothing matters - it doesn’t last long here normally, the humid stuff, and we are all glad because the dreadful dry and extreme heat that caused half the country to explode seems to be over for now. Now we have storms and humid. I just bought it up because I can’t imagine wanting to play acoustic as much if it was like this all the time, eg, Cairns in northern Australia. Some friends moved there years ago and are always saying for me to come up and play there, lots of possible gigs, nobody ever comes, etc....hmmm, wonder why......all I could do would be to sit in a pool and drink beer.....and I don’t usually drink beer! And no JZ, I don’t really know exactly how I cricked my neck, may have been a combination of pulling a dripping wet t shirt off badly after shuffling guitar cases with heavy resonators around in a hurry instead of the ‘right way’. But it is way better already and thank the Guitar Fairies I am back playing....couldn’t move anything without going...ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, yesterday and last night was just sickening whimpering from me while everybody and dog snored...... A relative has something like it ALL the time and is going for MORE surgery. Feel for him. BluesKing777. Edited February 20, 2020 by BluesKing777 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Murph Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 95+ % humidity reminds me of when I lived in Louisiana. I just left... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j45nick Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 When it gets humid here (south Florida) we just turn on the AC for awhile. Right now, my office is sitting at 73F and 44% humidity. I try to keep it close to those numbers, at least as far as humidity goes. We haven't had much cool weather this "winter." I'm off the Sydney, Oz tomorrow for work. Weather there looks similar to weather here right now. Thank Dog the fires seem to have subsided. You guys had had a miserable few months of that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluesKing777 Posted February 20, 2020 Author Share Posted February 20, 2020 On a more cheerful note......do you travel alone to Sydney or with associates? Camp on a smelly boat in the harbour or put up in a decent joint in the city? Kidding Nick, I know they will give you a nice hotel. Last time I stayed there, the Better Half was doing the company training thing for a few days and on the first morning after she left for work, I took my coffee out on the 20th floor balcony in Clarence and looked straight across at a building site the same height! The serenity! So I showered and hightailed it out of there. Went to all the guitar shops, that took 1/2 hour and I need another guitar to carry home on the plane, not. Wandered the main shopping streets for a bit, boring, walked downhill to the Rocks keeping in mind that I would have to walk all the way back UP later.... (Sydney is up and down like a bit of a San Fran - up down, up down and everyone is thin!) Anyway, as I passed an old, old hotel, the food smell was amazing and next thing, I am sitting alone eating lunch and having a few drinks. So I was thinking that I can’t just eat and get smashed every afternoon, so I bought a Travel Pass thingy where I could go on the harbour ferries, the train and bus anywhere in Sydney anytime. And I did! Over the next few days, I went on every ferry and hydrafoil on the harbour, trains and buses to the beach tourist spots and the monorail in town (since taken down). Went over the bridge, walked around the Opera House, went to Bondi, went to Manly, went to Watson’s Bay and walked up to the Heads lookout and took a bus down to Bondi beach and back to Bondi Junction and train back to town........even went to the Olympic site up the Parramatta River. I’m sure there are lots of other things to do in Sydney but the harbour has it all! BluesKing777. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j45nick Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 BK, I have a 20-minute ferry ride from the hotel on Darling Harbor to my work area on Cockatoo Island. It's appropriate that Cockatoo was a naval shipyard build by convict labor. I feel right at home. It's a very, very pleasant way to commute to work. Sydney's ferry system is the best local water transport system I've seen. It is an up and down city, like SF, so there is no shortage of exercise. There are also a lot of street buskers, which is always a good sign for any city. I went to one guitar shop in Sydney last year, but had little time to really look. For better or worse, all my trips focus on work, so it doesn't much matter if I am in Singapore, Sydney, San Fran, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Auckland, or some wretched stretch of sand punctuated by skyscrapers in the Middle East. As long as I can get a beer or a glass of wine, plus something reasonably recognizable and not wriggling on the plate for dinner, I'm a reasonably satisfied camper. That, plus high-speed internet access. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluesKing777 Posted February 20, 2020 Author Share Posted February 20, 2020 5 hours ago, j45nick said: BK, I have a 20-minute ferry ride from the hotel on Darling Harbor to my work area on Cockatoo Island. It's appropriate that Cockatoo was a naval shipyard build by convict labor. I feel right at home. It's a very, very pleasant way to commute to work. Sydney's ferry system is the best local water transport system I've seen. It is an up and down city, like SF, so there is no shortage of exercise. There are also a lot of street buskers, which is always a good sign for any city. I went to one guitar shop in Sydney last year, but had little time to really look. For better or worse, all my trips focus on work, so it doesn't much matter if I am in Singapore, Sydney, San Fran, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Auckland, or some wretched stretch of sand punctuated by skyscrapers in the Middle East. As long as I can get a beer or a glass of wine, plus something reasonably recognizable and not wriggling on the plate for dinner, I'm a reasonably satisfied camper. That, plus high-speed internet access. Yes, number one - get the forum! And it is no use going to the guitar shops unless you want a local guitar - the rest come from your place at 10 times the price. You may as well behave yourself and keep away from the shops. It would be a very nice way to start the day on a ferry to work. (though working at home is even better!). I was on a couple of ferry trips to Manly one time that went wrong - there was a storm with huge swells coming in through the Heads and the ferry captain (driver?) took it straight into the wave to avoid getting sideways and airborne and a crash through the next wave wasn't the normal calm water operating procedure! All the passengers were screaming. Somehow we made it to Manly ferry terminal and I went to the ocean beach and a few of the sites while considering taking the train the very long way back to Sydney. But thinking to myself: "Don't be such a chicken!", I got back on another ferry to go back to Sydney and this time the captain got it sideways to the huge wave/swell halfway across the harbour and people were thrown out of their seats! And lots of screaming and it didn't look like we were getting out of this one! Something to keep in mind as you are grinning to yourself on your ferry trips to work and back......😁 BluesKing777. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j45nick Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 44 minutes ago, BluesKing777 said: Something to keep in mind as you are grinning to yourself on your ferry trips to work and back......😁 BluesKing777. Mate, I sailed around the world in a 40 foot sailboat. If the ferries are running, I'll be on them. Ferries are clumsy beasts, however. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluesKing777 Posted February 20, 2020 Author Share Posted February 20, 2020 (edited) 46 minutes ago, j45nick said: Mate, I sailed around the world in a 40 foot sailboat. If the ferries are running, I'll be on them. Ferries are clumsy beasts, however. Stay away from the trains......😲 Back on the original topic - humidity - FYI: Sydney at 9.15 am is currently 72 degrees and 62% humidity! (at my house currently it is 65 degrees and 73% humidity). Sydney can be a very humid place, but nowhere near as bad as the next city up the coast - Brisbane. I think they call us visiting sweaty Southerners 'Pinkies' (they are all tanned and we are all white) and all this Pinky wanted to do in Brisbane ( currently 84 degrees and 66% humidity) was to have a swim and of course, you can't because they have box jellyfish waiting in the water to sting you. (and the sharks of course). I don't think Sydney get the jellyfish, just the sharks. At a few places on the coast of Sydney, they have rock pools fro shark free swimming and Queensland has a netting system at the some beaches. https://www.timeout.com/sydney/sport-and-fitness/the-best-ocean-pools-in-sydney http://travelnq.com/stinger-nets/ and of course - the ferry going through a storm - I may have been on this one!: https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/819373725925811018/ BluesKing777. Edited February 20, 2020 by BluesKing777 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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