WHAT?! A humidifier!?

[Soulstress]

I was browsing through a thread that stated something to the fact that you need to maintain a 40% humidity level in the room your guitar will be in. What is THIS all about? This is something I never heard before. I have to treat it like a third child now? LOL

[sunvalleylaw]

That is for solid wood acoustics. Don't get too worried about your electric guitar. Much less touchy. A little humidity if your place is really dry doesn't hurt, but most don't even worry about it. One should treat their solid wood acoustics with some care, but I am not one to "keep them under glass" as it were.

[Soulstress]

Whew.

[marnold***]

Yeah, my electric requires the occasional seasonal truss rod tweak, but that's about it. That's one of the joys of living in a place where the temperatures fluctuate between a bone-dry zero and a swamp-wet 95.

[jpfeifer]

I can vouch for the importance of a humidifier for acoustics made of solid wood (Martins, Taylors, Guilds, etc). Unfortunately, I haven't been as careful about this as I should have over the years. I live in Arizona so our humidity is naturally very low most of the year, well below the 40% reccomended humidity for acoustic guitars.

My Martin is now 20 years old, and it has shown some signs of damage from dryness. (e.g. part of the binding around the body is coming unglued in one area, the frett ends feel sharp, and a small crack is appearing in part of the body)

I will be taking my guitar to a luthier this year to have this repaired, but I wish that I would have been clued into the importance of properly hudifiying guitars earlier when I first bought this guitar in 1989.
However, it's nothing that can't be repaired. But I take good care of my guitars and I hate to see them have any damage at all.

The Martin sounds fantastic though. I wonder sometimes if the dryness has helped it?

--Jim

[tot_Ou_tard]

I
The Martin sounds fantastic though. I wonder sometimes if the dryness has helped it?

--Jim

I read that that a benefit of vintage acoustics is that if it went through all those years of temperature and humidity changes and is still in good shape and sounds great, then you know it will be good in the future.

I also read that old wood which has been waterlogged and then dried out & waterlogged and then dried out...makes for good tone wood. I guess that it might be fine for the wood, it's the guitar construction that can suffer.

Unfortunately, we kind'a need it shaped like a guitar to play it.

[deeaa*]

I was browsing through a thread that stated something to the fact that you need to maintain a 40% humidity level in the room your guitar will be in. What is THIS all about? This is something I never heard before. I have to treat it like a third child now? LOL

As replied, with electrics it's not that important. All it affects is maybe need a truss rod adjustment.

But it can be bad - I have a wooden house in a nordic climate so it changes between 20 and 90 percent for humidity...that's bad for guitars, only the best can survive :-) also wreaks havoc with voice, during winters when it's super dry I'm always sneezing and so on.

[wingsdad]

I can vouch for the importance of a humidifier for acoustics made of solid wood (Martins, Taylors, Guilds, etc). ... I live in Arizona so our humidity is naturally very low most of the year, well below the 40% reccomended humidity for acoustic guitars.

My Martin is now 20 years old, and it has shown some signs of damage from dryness. ... .. sounds fantastic though. I wonder sometimes if the dryness has helped it?

Ditto. Moved here from the Northeast to the SoCal 'High Desert' in '92, and my Guild D40, which needed (and got) no special attention to humidification for it's first 22 years, literally came unglued -- the top's braces fell off, the back's center joint spread open, and minor cracks widened -- after 5 years of inattention in this arid area. It cost me $400 & 4 months of rehydration by a local luthier before he could glue and rejoin things. Since then, I've been fanatical about maintaining a healthy environment for her, using extra-light strings (10-47's) or even stringing her to Nashville tuning to minimize the tension on her top/bridge.

But, like your Martin, she sounds great. Dryness? It could be more a matter of just playing the life into her over all those years. Solid wood -- especially softer woods used for tops like spruce, cedar, and 'less dense' woods used for backs like mahogany and especially rosewood -- is a dynamic, porous, 'breathing' material. Thus, solid tops 'open up' from the vibrations of being played. Tone will change over time as the top's (and back's) character develops. That's not the case with a laminated wood (or synthetic, resin material) tops and backs.

If you want the guitar to sound the same for its lifetime, buy a lam top. If you want it to age gracefully, buy solid.

The importance of solid wood sides is grossly overstated. The sides are there basically to establish the body depth and to hold the top & back together. They barely vibrate at all since they're not flat.

Lack of adequate humidity WILL damage an electric (or acoustic) with unbound fingerboards; the fret ends may 'sprout' as the fingerboard dries out & contracts. (when you buy a new guitar and it's got 'fret sprout', that's a pretty good sign that the neck wood was 'cured' too fast or sealed too soon in the manufacturing process after the frets went in, dried out and sprung the fret ends. Either that, it was neglected over time in the warehouse or store.)

Worse than underhumidification is to allow excessive moisturizing. Once the wood has absorbed too much and swells, if waterlogged, it can be impossible to dehydrate it safely. Bloated, the wood won't vibrate as freely and instead of ringing tone, you'll enjoy thudding.