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Ive been thinking about humidity, and making a controlled guitar storage box, with some silica get stuff in a can in the corner to suck up the air water. I guess it could be like a large cigar box, with the humidity gauge on the outside, and a fan/heater to dry out the silica.

Silica gel is silicon dioxide (SiO2). It is a naturally occurring mineral that is purified and processed into either granular or beaded form. As a desiccant, it has an average pore size of 24 angstroms and has a strong affinity for moisture molecules. The silica gel will pull in moisture at temperatures up to 220°F (105°C). As temperature goes above 100°F, the rate of moisture pickup will slow down but the silica gel will still work.

Silica gel performs best at room temperatures (70° to 90°F) and high humidity (60 to 90% RH) and will drop the relative humidity in a container down to around 40% RH. In the United States, silica gel is commonly used in food and pharmaceutical applications as only silica gel has been approved by the FDA for direct contact with these items.

As with clay, silica gel, with its wide range of pore sizes, has the capability of adsorbing compounds other than water. The relative order of adsorbability is: water, ammonia, alcohols, aromatics, diolefins, olefins and paraffins. When the potential for multicomponent adsorption is present, expect the more strongly adsorbed compounds, such as water, to displace the more weakly held ones

So this may work on a gobar press with a plastic bag of sorts. When sealed up tight, the loss may take a week or more, and all you need to do is replace the can of gel, take out the moisture filled canister, and dry it out.

 

Sounds simple, anyone do this?

The simplest way I saw of storing guitar parts in a dry environment was a plywood box with a 100 watt light bulb inside. One luthier I know has an old cupboard with a couple of light bulbs running inside. Seems to work fine for him.

you are looking only at one aspect, i.e., coping with high rh which is of course the issue in many parts of the us at this time of year. but the issue of low rh is just as big, if not a bigger problem at other times of the year or in other locales. don't become fixated on just one aspect of the problem of rh control.

todd, like you i have a constant battle with the weather. even though the shop is air conditioned, the summer weather around here requires the use of additional dehumidification, and in the winter the humidifiers run almost non-stop. there are brief periods in spring and autumn when there is a truce declared, the battle resumes!

I bought a plastic box that's intended for storing things under a bed. It's long and wide enough for guitar parts, but not deep enough for an assembled body. My intent was to keep my wood in it and keep it dry with silica gel. I was able to get the inside of the box down to 40 - 45% relative humidity. But the silica gel needs to be dried out once a week or so and it takes five hours in the oven to dry it out.

My guitar-building is stymied at the moment because of humidity problems. My shop is in a corner of a large basement room, so dehumidifying the whole room would be a challenge. In a few more weeks, we'll be at the point where the humidity falls naturally into guitar-bulding range, so maybe I can get some work done then.

_________________
John Cavanaugh
Saint Paul, MN
"What could possibly go wrong?"

[QUOTE=John Cavanaugh]I bought a plastic box that's intended for storing things under a bed. It's long and wide enough for guitar parts, but not deep enough for an assembled body. My intent was to keep my wood in it and keep it dry with silica gel. I was able to get the inside of the box down to 40 - 45% relative humidity. But the silica gel needs to be dried out once a week or so and it takes five hours in the oven to dry it out.

My guitar-building is stymied at the moment because of humidity problems. My shop is in a corner of a large basement room, so dehumidifying the whole room would be a challenge. In a few more weeks, we'll be at the point where the humidity falls naturally into guitar-bulding range, so maybe I can get some work done then. [/QUOTE]

Thats actually what this thread was really about, a small building area. What Im thinking is if you can close off an area with 2X4s and plastic, you could de-humidify that little space so you can fit into it, like 8'x5'x5' or something.

I thought about this because last week I was around 45% and this week Im at 55%- and getting ready to glue up the top braces -Im along that sweet spot corridor from Montana to North New mexico that is near perfect humidity. My dial is near always at 45% - We are getting T-storms now so its a little more wet.