Guitars and Humidity

[Woody Sound]

I'll be moving out this week and the apartment might get a bit more dry than my current setup. I don't have any solid-top guitars, does it even matter?

Fretboards can very very affected by humidity issues.

But I'm confused about your sentence. Why can't you humidify your apartment?

[furtom]

the action is higher above the 15th fret than it is on the first fret.

This sentence is a head scratcher. are you sure he said "action"? I don't get it.

[rob taft]

This summer in NE Florida has been brutal for high humidity levels. In the evening hours the humidity levels outside will be 90+. We have had a lot of rain where I live and I have a creek and swamp that runs through and borders my property. The A/C alone in the evening isn't running enough to keep the house humidity in check so I ended up buying a room de-humidifier to put in my guitar room. The side benefit is that the water sucked out of the air is basically distilled water so it is good for car battery, clothes irons etc and plant care.

I have quite a few guitars on wall racks and stands and the high humidity levels while not has damaging has low humidity levels does mess with the neck wood and action as well as the tonal characteristics of my acoustic guitars i.e. they sound less vibrant when too wet. Nearly all of my guitars with the exception of a couple of Gibson and Fender solid body guitars have ebony fingerboards

I did live in the UP of MI for several years and low humidity was a real problem but I installed a whole house humidifier for that area. I got tired of dealing with the upkeep of case humidifiers and the room humidifier, plus if you are not careful the room humidifiers can be a breeding zone for mold.

As another poster mentioned buy a calibration kit for your humidity gauge (assuming it can be adjusted), I have 3 and they were all different from each other. One by as much as 7% at 45% and 75 degree temp. Interestingly enough, it was the most expensive one.

[sgcim]

This sentence is a head scratcher. are you sure he said "action"? I don't get it.

Neither do I.

[oldane]

I recently showed my archtop to a luthier about a minor problem I was having.
He looked at it for a second, and said it needed a neck set.
I asked him why, and he said because the action is higher above the 15th fret than it is on the first fret.
I told him I thought that was normal.
He disagreed, and said it was because I used very high gauge strings like most jazz guitarists.
I told him I only use TI Bebop 11s.
He said, 'Well, then it's because of the humidity' (I'm in NY).
I told him I use an Oasis humidifier in my case all the time.
He said I have to buy a large humidifier, and keep the guitar with it constantly on in a small room.

I phoned the luthier who made the guitar about this,( and who has done all the work on it), and he said the guitar didn't need a neck set.
Does the Oasis humidifier work that poorly, that it could cause a problem like this?

Seems like that "luthier" doesn't have a clue about archtops - or was trying to lull a lot of money out of you. If he had said that to me, I would quietly have packed up my guitar and politely told him I'd just think about it - and then I'd find another luthier.

If it ain't broken, don't fix it.

[sgcim]

Seems like that "luthier" doesn't have a clue about archtops - or was trying to lull a lot of money out of you. If he had said that to me, I would quietly have packed up my guitar and politely told him I'd just think about it - and then I'd find another luthier.

If it ain't broken, don't fix it.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I did. I was just using him for diagnosis advice; now I won't even be using him for that.