My take on humidity.

[ken cierp]

On the other hand here in the USA I have personally seen hundreds of guitars damaged by low humidity -- our major vintage dealer here in MI Elderly (and many others) have nice profit centers, just repairing such damage. Its really not the RH you hear on the weather reports that is the problem -- its the RH in the room or building where the completed instrument is stored, used, displayed. As an example in some Shopping Malls the air conditioners pull off so much mositure the RH can be in the 20's -- as a matter of fact one high end dealer in a Madison Heights MI Mall (this was a while back) saw damage on much of their solid wood guitar inventory before they took the impact of the central air make up into consideration.

And a simple forced air furnace, common in American homes can do exactly the same thing -- thus, that is why we makers and all the major manufacturers (even though we build in about 45% RH) stress the importance of the need to use a basic case humidifier.

Back to the original post -- unless the instument will never be exposed to low RH (it does not matter how slowly it occurs) for most of us its less of a gamble to construct the guitar in an RH that is much lower then it will be exposed to on average. $.02

Also Dave, if you still believe this is a contrived notion circulated by the guitar making industry, you may want out check out the subject of RH and material moisture loss and gain in the general wood working publications, in particular text books. I can tell you in advance you'll see the very same warnings

[John Parchem]

In Seattle Washington we have relatively consistent humidity the RH swings outside morning to afternoon relative to the temperature. One really does not even have to think about humidity control. With no control the RH inside is usually around 50-55%

When living in Indiana I experienced swings from almost no humidity inside during the winter to 99% RH in the summer. I would sure hate to build there in the summer without humidity control and have it experience a week of -30C where without added humidity the air is virtually without any moisture and the RH approached zero when the air is heated. Bad stuff happens.

[Dave Sayers]

I think I made the point that it was probably the humidifier industry, not the guitar industry? All the guitar builders and luthiers I've discussed things with are honest in their opinions. I think John Parchem echoes my point; the humidity here is constant, usually, and only changes slowly, so I'm not going to worry about it. I have enough worries about neck angles.

[ken cierp]

First 60 seconds

[Lonnie B]

I'm with you Dave. I've built in Arizona where the air was dry as a popcorn fart. Also here in Tennessee in the spring and summer it get's way up there then it rains. This year I swear we had a monsoon season. The only damage I saw was an 88 year old man who brought me a Martin from out of the sixties to replace some frets. He called me about four days later and asked me if I could fix the action on it. I said what's up? The action was perfect when it left here the other day! He had listened to a guitar tech who told him that sometimes in the winter we get awful dry here. So the old guy stuck a humidifier into the sound hole and didn't release the tension on the strings. Well it didn't quite fold up completely. But he sure screwed up a nice old Martin. I refused to fool with it for him. As I keep those little packets inside my guitar cases to keep the humidity down. Poor old guy that nice guitar will never be as nice as it once was. I talked to the Tech who told him about the humidity. He had tried to fix the action. He was able to get it down a little. But he basically was just mentioning a cold dry winter of years past. The old fella took matters into his own hands. I've lived here in Tennessee for 20 years. I have probably 20 guitars in cases all with those little packets. It's wet here not dry. I really don't worry about humidity here. I'm sure there are scientific studies that show I should be working in a climate controlled room.

[ken cierp]

http://www.larrivee.com/features/humidity.php

[ken cierp]

http://www.taylorguitars.com/global/pdf ... t_hits.pdf