Official Luthiers Forum!

It's not really being debated.   

We're quite careful to keep our build room at between 44% and 47%. We don't have significant humidity issues with out instruments out in the field, but still I think that we care a hell of a lot more than most guitar players do. I find that the hygrometers we get from LMI are pretty accurate, and I don't feel the need to go nuts with a sling psychrometer and all that.   Of course we're pretty fortunate here in Santa Cruz to have a very mild climate. I do keep a couple of the large Sears dehumidifiers going in the build room and keeping them set at 40% pretty much takes care of things.   There's a fair amount of traffic in and out of that room, but the humidity doesn't vary enough to give us problems.   We actually find that the action goes up on both our ukes and acoustic guitars once they leave that room and go into the office and shipping department as the tops dome up more, so we set up low knowing where the action is likely to be in "normal" conditions.

Those instruments would not have survived another 48 hours at Telluride.   I had the guy do a zip lock bag within a zip lock bag both punched with offset holes with a very damp paper towel inside them; one was put in each guitar. The offset holes prevented direct water leakage but allowed enough moisture to escape into the guitars to prevent them from cracking which they certainly would have.   

Ah, i see.... Thanks for clarifying.

The only reason for the sling is to check that the cheap hygrometers are still reading right. $20 of thermometers to double check on a handful of $15 hygrometers, instead of relying on one hygrometer worth hundreds(that still needs to be checked against the sling every few months, anyway).