heyjakedean Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 so last summer i picked up an 81 gibson sonex. i had my eye on one for a really long time and found a pretty good deal on the internet and went ahead and bought it, even though i dont like buying guitars i haven't played before. after i got it in the mail i took it in to my local shop to it get set up and have the frets filed and the electronics checked out and all that good stuff.. after a pickup swap and some new wiring it was up and running. one thing i began to notice though was that the guitar wouldn't stay in tune for very long. it got so bad that i couldn't even keep it in tune long enough to get through a song cleanly. needless to say i was pretty bummed out. by the end of summer i had switched back to playing my tele full time. i had all but given up on the gibson, or at lease didn't want to play it until i brought it back into the shop to get looked at again, until i picked it up again about a week ago. and what do ya know? she's playing perfectly! it's blowing my mind that all the intonation issues i had with it before are virtually unnoticeable. i'm rippin and shreddin my face off and i don't have to retune a thing. so i'm pretty much chalking this up to an issue in humidity. when i got the guitar last summer it was muggy and damp in my apartment (no air conditioning) and now that the dry winter has come in and frozen things up, i think the wood in the guitar has settled a little more and is helping to keep it in tune. now my problem is, i wanna play this guitar all the time. is there a case dehumidifier or something similar i can buy? and does anybody have a testimonial as to whether or not they work well? thanks for any insight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twiz Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 First thing, welcome to the forums. Also, you have to post a photo of the Sonex when you get a chance. We geek out over that stuff (at least I do anyway). As far as a case dehumidifier, I've never heard of one. -Only case humidifiers. I'm not saying they don't exist, but the idea of taking moisture away from a guitar as it sits in a case worries me. Have you considered maybe it's a nut/tuning peg issue? I changed string gauges a couple years ago (went from 10's to 12's) and I had all kinds of weirdness going on. Maybe check that stuff out too? I think humidity and/or temp change definitely effects a guitar staying in tune. -My band practices in this warehouse with no heat (it sucks this time of the year) and I have to tune 2 or 3 times after I get my Lester out of the case before everything seems to equalize. I hope you can get it fixed. I like the Sonex, they were pretty cool looking. -Especially with the zebra pups. Cheers. .t Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ksdaddy Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 In '97 I swapped an old Martin for my '71 LP. It was in April and it wouldn't stay in tune for crap. The truss rod was impossible to adjust and maintain a constant degree of relief. I figured it was just a change of environment. It leveled out after a while. Next April, the same thing. At that point I guessed it might be that the particular piece of rosewood the board was made from might be more hygroscopic than normal, thus making it unstable during periods of rapid humidity changes (like April in Maine). I rubbed some boiled linseed oil into the board, a couple coats just like you would an old gun stock. It's never given me grief since. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heyjakedean Posted January 26, 2011 Author Share Posted January 26, 2011 thanks for the input guys. i'll have some pics of it up eventually. still got them zebras. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rocketman Posted January 26, 2011 Share Posted January 26, 2011 I have an '81 Gibson Sonex-180 Custom... This was my main guitar for many years and I never had intonation problems with it while I was playing it for my gigs (3-4 times a week for over 10 years). When I moved to Texas though I never played the thing and then when I moved to Buffalo I let it sit in the basement for a few years. When I finally opened it the guitar was in bad shape. I did as much as I could, e.g. rewiring, put on a new pickguard, new coil tap, etc., but I had to take it to a tech because the neck was warped along it's parallel axis, i.e. torsionally. Luckily it's a bolt-on and he shaved parts of if it down to realign it. This was about 4 years ago and it plays like it did back in the 80s. Of all my guitars the Sonex stays in tune the best and it rarely needs an intonation adjustment. My tech told me to throw in a humidipak in the case (I use three in my Taylor case) but I didn't need to do that. I think if you get a good tech to work on it, then it'll be fine... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heyjakedean Posted January 26, 2011 Author Share Posted January 26, 2011 thanks rocketman, i appreciate it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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