Humidity changes and guitar maintenance

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VH4_BigRig

VH4_BigRig

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Hey guys, so my apartment (well, the city I live in in general) has wild fluctuations in humidity and temperature all year round. In the summer, humidity can fluctuate between 35-65% and temperature from 20-35 C, and in the winter humidity is usually 15-30%. I have a humidifier for the winter, de-humidifier for the summer, central heating and a window AC unit; I try to keep things at 40% and 22C year round, but it can be tough.

Needless to say, this has f*cked with my instruments pretty badly at times. I used to leave all my guitars out on a rack, now I leave them all (except the one I play most) in their cases. There was one I actually threw out because it was my beater acoustic and simply wasn't playable anymore.

Usually I leave my humidifier on all day now to keep it at 40%, but since the thing is loud as hell, I turn it off when I go to bed. When I wake up, the humidity is back down to 20%, and I fill up the tanks and turn it back on. What I was wondering was how wild fluctuations like this might affect the guitars....is worse for the guitar to constantly go between 20 and 40% humidity, or just to stay at 20% for a long time? How would you guys attempt to deal with this? It's super frustrating to play guitar right now because all of my axes have fret buzz and/or muted/choked off sounding strings, and it's demoralizing to play and be annoyed with how the guitar sounds. I finally have a rig setup I'm completely satisfied with, but my guitars are killing me. What do you guys think?

Any advice greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance. Cheers
 
I have all my guitars in the basement. It's like 10% humidity in the Winter. I use 2 ultrasonic HUT-200 honeywell humidifiers on 24/7 in the winter. I have a huge 2 gallon plastic jug I use to fill them and I use the ultrasonic additive to keep down the white dust and mold. Clean them 1x per month. It sucks. Usually, I can get the room at 40% or so and keep it like that all Winter. I would look into an ultrasonic humidifier. They are quiet. But whatever you do, get 2 of them. They are all made in China and they all suck. I've had about 20 different ones and have settled on the models I have because I know how they work and the issues they usually have.

Way I figure it is like this. The guitars take a beating with the fluctuations, but after a couple Winters, they sort of settle in, or they don't. If they don't, I get rid of them. Now the only guitars I have that I really worry about is my National resonators, which I have 4 of. They had the sharp fret ends a couple winters ago, but seem to have settled in.

I have found, for whatever reason, the Jacksons tend to be doing a lot better than the Ibanez's I've had. This is in regards to fretboard shrinkage. I think Ibanez doesn't let the fretboard wood settle in as long because they pump out so many guitars.

Or maybe I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. But sharp fret ends drives me nuts. Yeah, I know I can take it to a guitar shop. Then I risk some hack butchering the binding on my guitars. So I just oil the shit out of the FB in the spring and they usually come back if they've had an issue.
 
If you used distilled water the white dust (which is actually calcification) would go away.
 
I have a large de-humidifier and a large humidifier. I switch them in the summer and winter. The heat dries the house out so I need to put that moisture back in the air. I keep mine running 24/7 during the cold months. Before doing so I was fighting setups through the season changes. Now they stay nice. I keep my temp around 70 and the humidity at 50%.

I think over time some checking could occur. Constant expand and shrinkage of the wood reeks havoc on finishes over time. Fret boards need attention over the winter months to. You can tell things are shrinking when you start to feel the fret wire ends when playing. I'm OCD about my gear so I keep after these things.
 
Hey guys, giving this old thread a bump. The humidity changes in this city are driving me nuts. I was just wondering if you guys know of any climate controllers you can put in a guitar case? I've found a few mini-humidifiers, but nothing that decreases humidity as well, and I don't even know if such a thing exists. Google searches turned up that the most common method for controlling the environment for your guitars is a humidor or custom box/cabinet. However, if this is the situation, I'd rather build my own than buy a pre-made one or spend any money on someone else building one for me!

If case controllers don't exist, what would be the best materials to make my own cabinet from that wouldn't cost an arm and a leg? I'm assuming there would actually be something worth buying for this size that regulates the environment, like something that they'd use for large cigar cases? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated! I've been wanting to get a new guitar because my current ones are annoying me, but don't see the point if it will just end up just like them thanks to the environment! Thanks in advance!
 
I know how you feel. I live in Winnipeg. Summers here can have weather like Florida sometimes, and winters here can be like the north pole. My guitars are always "adjusting".

Humidifiers and dehumidifiers seem like a waste of energy and just a lot of noise. You could take the route that some guitar dealers do: have a small room specifically for your guitars and keep that room's temperature and humidity controlled. That would be a lot easier than trying to do that for an open room or an entire floor of your house.

Or consider this: Once you do a "winter setup" and a "summer setup" for a guitar (including fret leveling both times), after that you'll find setups become a lot easier; from that point on it probably only requires a bit of truss rod and action adjustment (until your frets need more leveling due to wear).

As the wood expands it ends up giving the neck a profile slightly different from what it'd be like if it were contracted but compensated for by adjusting the truss rod. Likewise as the wood contracts and you'd compensate by adjusting the truss rod the other way, the neck isn't quite the same as if its wood were just less contracted. A truss adjustment is a more "ballpark" adjustment for the general curvature of the neck. The fulcrum of the truss rod isn't necessarily exactly where it needs to be to compensate for the curvature differences as the next expands and contracts (including the side-to-side differences that might happen, a bit of warp/twist). If you do a fret leveling/setup in the dry season, for the remainder of the season it'll seem fine. Then when the humid season comes and you do another setup, it'll seem like you have to do fret leveling again...because you sort of do even if only just a small amount. (Wait until it really needs it, significantly into the season.) If the work is done carefully, after two fret levelings/setups the neck should be "good to go" for the differences in humidity as they happen, with only truss rod and action adjustments required from that point on. Use a tech known for careful work, not someone who hacks off tons of fretwire material as he does his job. :) A slight "fallaway" from the 12th fret up can help too...and I do mean slight. If you learn how to do fret leveling yourself, it's liberating. Some techs are better than others, and I can trust myself more to know exactly what I want in a fret leveling (once I knew what I was doing).
 
Just like the post above my guitars and amps are in my basement. I use a stand alone dehumidifier in the late spring/summer and a humidifier in the late fall through early spring. Run 24/7. I live in the Chicago area so I get a fluctuation in temps and humidity. Yes, both suck energy and can be noisy, but my guitars are worth it.
 
I just buy a cheap humidifier off Amazon and run it 24/7 till it wears out. Tap water will coat everything in white dust so I use distilled water now.....kind of a pain but it beats the new Mexico alternative.
 
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