Humidity and an older Guild. Do I really need to do anything?

Westerly Wood

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dude that bought my wife's Martin a few months back, it was his contention that I no longer need to humidify my old Guild, as it is so old by now and totally settled. He seemed amused and a tad surprised I was still using a lifeguard in the sound hole. I keep it in a case when not being played, but the lifeguard is more a habit over years and years. It is tucson, and is super dry and we run A/C most of the day to keep house at 78-80...

am i right in thinking, while guy was super nice and we had a great talk as he checked over the 000-18, he was dead wrong?

sometimes i wonder if humidity while in case actually raises string action...i just dont know.
 
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geoguy

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I think you're taking the right approach. Old or new, acoustic guitars at my place get humidified during the winter heating season, when indoor relative-humidity levels are down around 20 percent.

If I screw up & neglect to keep the in-case humidifiers damp, I'm rewarded with guitars that are out of tune within a couple of weeks. I'm sure that if I let it go long enough, I'd probably be further rewarded with frets protruding from the neck, etc.

I have one solid-body guitar. It gets no humidification, & shows a little fret sprout by the end of winter.
 
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Rich Cohen

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IMHO wood is wood, whether old or new. It's ability to absorb moisture doesn't cease with age. Therefore, I would suggest that acoustic guitars' moisture content during the dry months of heating during winter need to be kept in properly humidified environments.
 

steve488

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Perhaps your "dude" buyer was just that (perhaps too many peyote puffs outside Oracle?). Even wood in an unstressed state dries out and splits. By its very design, the wood in an acoustic guitar is in various states of tension and compression . Those stresses were defined in the build at the factory at some fixed level of moisture in the air and in the wood (relative humidity). Take that water out of the wood and all the stresses shift resulting in splits, cracks, pulled joints etc. It is called physics.
 

Westerly Wood

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yeah, nice guy though. he was stoked about that Martin too, was gonna get it all refurbished etc. Of course by now it as a few extra cracks in it...:)
 

Christopher Cozad

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...it was his contention that I no longer need to humidify my old Guild, as it is so old by now and totally settled...
{Can't resist...} "Indeed, just as older cars no longer require motor oil, older horses don't need groomed, and older people don't have to brush their teeth any more, now that they have settled.

And everyone knows that a vintage guitar (the more expensive, the better) can hold out significantly longer underwater in a flooded basement than can some brand new, unsettled guitar. By a factor of weeks and weeks, I am sure." {...end sarcasm}

For our purposes, Humidity, the measurement of moisture content (water vapor) in the air, and it's close cousin Relative Humidity, the ratio of water vapor to air at a given temperature, can have a very deliberate impact on a wooden acoustic guitar (Carbon Fiber guitars are near-impervious to Humidity).

When the air feels "dry", the humidity is considered to be low. In such an environment the wood of the guitar will contract or shrink across the grain. This can be so pronounced on some fretboards, which are approximately 2" wide, you can actually feel the metal frets projecting slightly beyond the edges of the fingerboard. In severe cases, the guitar top or back, which often span 14" to 17", can contract 1/8" or more which usually results in a crack or split, as Al referenced. Another indication of low humidity (too dry of an environment) can be sudden fret buzz, typically caused by a collapsing, concave top as the braces and neck block are contracting.

Too moist (humid) of an environment, where humidity is high, can also have detrimental effects. As the wood takes on moisture and expands, the entire top and back can belly, raising the action. Under severe conditions, glue joints can fail (loose braces, forward shifted neck, etc) and the guitar can become unplayable.

If you are humidifying your guitar in it's case, and you are noticing that your guitar's action is raising after such a treatment, rather than assume that you are "over-humidifying" the instrument, I would suspect it is "under-humidified" in it's normal state. That is to say, the air in your home is too dry. Placing the guitar in a case with some moisture is allowing it to return to the conditions under which it was likely constructed. Make sense?
 

Westerly Wood

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thanks Christopher. I love this line of yours above: "Indeed, just as older cars no longer require motor oil, older horses don't need groomed, and older people don't have to brush their teeth any more, now that they have settled.''

brilliant...

The Br is totally fine. Al, I mean the ol' Flattop. I was kind of hoping I could just no longer care re humidity but my BS meter kind of went off though I was quite respectful about the whole thing...:)
 

adorshki

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The Br is totally fine. Al, I mean the ol' Flattop. I was kind of hoping I could just no longer care re humidity but my BS meter kind of went off though I was quite respectful about the whole thing...:)
That's gonna happen more and more often as you get older.
Don't forget the freebies for bein' an OLF.
And I wasn't worried about ol' Flattop.
 

Bonneville88

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WW... buy a cool Hygrometer... and nerdy as it seems, you'll enjoy glancing
at the dial when you walk by :cool-new:
 

dreadnut

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I have Lifeguard soundhole humidifiers but I live in Michigan so I only use them in the winter when we're heating the house. We're a pretty wet state.
 

JohnW63

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He just said...( in a very deep voice ) " Al....I AM your father !!! "

I would watch out for his light saber, as you might need BOTH hands to keep playing.
 

Bonneville88

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1u5tcd.jpg
 
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