leebo87 wrote
Very interesting, has anyone here suffered from damage/changes to their instruments due to climate? Ha, has anyone tried to get the humidity just right?? ?
Not damage, though that can happen, but my number one guitar is certainly less happy in the winter than the summer. This is more about humidity than temperature. It's well documented that in dry conditions tops will shrink and pull downwards a little more, thus lowering the action. This is more of a problem in some parts of the world than in others. I live in Jo'burg where the winters are very dry. So I use in-case humidifiers in the winter.
I learned about this the hard way, though not to the point of damage to the instrument. The thing was buzzing like crazy a couple of winters back. I mentioned this to Hugh Cumming of Hugh's Fine Guitars and he advised me to get a ziploc bag or an old tupperware with some holes punched in it, and use that and a bath sponge to make a sort of super humidifier. After about three days the action went back to normal and the buzzing went away.
Bob Taylor writes in
The Acoustic Guitar Owner's Manual (ISBN 978-1-890490-21-8) that most good quality acoustic guitars are built at around about 45% relative humidity. At 30% the top can have shrunk by as much as 1/8 inch across the width of the instrument. At 15% it could be as much as 3/16.
The top and sides are usually different woods and so don't all shrink at the same rate, and the braces usually shrink less than the thin top. So damage can occur, and action will probably change.
This is worse on steel strings than classicals because the steel strings have much more tension. And it's likely to be worse on expensive guitars as solid wood is more sensitive to humidity than laminates.
Taylor makes the point that each guitar is it's own best humidity gauge, and that if you just pay a little attention and take simple precautions when you detect a change then the problem is easily managed.
The article that Manfred posted makes an interesting point - that the old fashioned glues are likely to act as a kind of safety net because they may give way before the wood does.
