Official Luthiers Forum!

Where is the most RH friendly place on earth to build guitars?

I'll move there!!

I was working in my shop, planning my next build, when I saw condensation on the windows...my shop gets terribly cold and damp in the wintertime, as it's adjoined to the kitchen. This British winter is gonna be average temps and quite damp, so it looks like I'm either gonna have to use loads of eletricity in Humidity control and heating, or put off the build 'till next year..

Unless my husband allows me to set up shop in the dining room...

I envy you guys....Sam Price39004.6009375

Oxnard, California

Perfect RH all year round.....

You need some realtors to help you find a place? peterm39004.6137384259

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Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

Hesh is right on!
45% is perfect.
I've only had 2 guitars of mine crack -both from misplacement -to close to a high and dry heat source.

I've actually seen backs and tops go concave from lack of humidity and not crack because all the woods had the right amount of moisture in them and the guitars were built right.
Ever feel the fret ends of a guitar because it was fretted before the f.b. was dry enough to use or the fretting took place in a to high humidity area.
Mike Collins

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Mike Collins

Peterm:

I'll look to rent, not buy..   

Hesh...

Thanks; your posts are always clear. I found the whole aspect of RH levels confusing; However, are you saying that the only time to get totally paranoid about the RH is when the wood is being glued up?

I have got loads to do in the meantime, getting my zoot all bandsawed and planed to thickness...


Mike...45% is a difficult percentage to reach at the mo!!! It might be up 'till May next year before I can glue up!!!

Sam Price39004.7253587963

Sam:

Store your wood, and your work, in a closet and keep THAT ONE CLOSET properly humidified.

Then, when you want to, bring your work out to the unhumidified "shop area" for processing, and then back into the closet for storage until the next time.

It's my understanding that many successful builders do it this way, for space considerations. I personally know a builder whose wood/work storage area is probably only the size of a small, walk in closet...but his work area is unheated, un-air conditioned and not humidity controlled. Trust me when I say "he does ok."

Anyway, controlling a small closet (or a small room you built specifically for the wood/work storage purpose) is much easier, much less expensive and much less of a hassle than trying to maintain a leaky basement.   

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Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

the college where I'm doing my course has two lockable cupboards the size of large wardrobes with a dehumidifier in there.

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My soundclick xx luthier blog xx luthier soundclick

Sam, you'll find that the RH will settle back down again when we go into winter proper. Don't forget this Autumn is one of the warmest (and most humid on record and even then we are only up in the high 50s RH. Most of the winter you'll find your right on in the mid to low 40s RH. My shop is not humidity controlled (too difficult in a 600 year old barn!) but the room that I store my wood and my work in progress is controlled. Wood takes a time to equilibriate with it's surroundings so I can take it from my store room to the shop, work on it all day then take it back to the store and as far as the wood is concerned (or it's moisture content at least) it never knew it left it's cosy surroundings.

As Hesh said it's only when gluing on braces etc, where the two grain directions of the wood your joining differ that is at the high end of critical.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

In my shop, the humidity start going down in the cold season because of the heating....

Without proper control, it can go from high 70% in the summer to low 20% in the winter...

I have a large A/C unit, a large capacity dehumidifier and a humidifier... What a hobby!!!

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

I've never heard of high humidity problems in the winter. I don't know your
climate there, but I suppose if it doesn't get cold enough to run the funace it
could happen. When the heat is running it seems almost impossible to bring
the humidity too high. Keep in mind that condensation on cold windows is
not a reliable indicater of high humidity. If you have single pane windows it
can be 40% and 65 degrees in the middle of the room, but if it's close to
freezing outside you will see condensation.

Winter time here means putting away your dehumidifier and pulling out the
humidifiers.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

Cool Hesh, perfect RH and Temperature!

Awww, you people are the greatest!!

Thanks!!!!!

I guess I was feeling a little maudlin yesterday and blinkered to any possibility...of COURSE I have a small closet upstairs where my guitars are stored. I will install a shelf and store my zoot up there.

It's been such a great summer, and now in comes the cold and damp...

Sam Price39005.2900347222

hang in there Sam, time to order a harp plan and to build more jiggies!

A drying box is another option for controlling humidity. Basically, its
a cardboard box with a light bulb hanging in it where you store your
woods for your current build. There are detail on this in the MIMF
library. I am getting ready to put one together because the gulf
coast climate has fairly unrelenting humidity.

Thanks Barry, that's a great suggestion. I'll go check out the MIMF library.

Martin, I imagine the Rh in your classroom at work is pretty ideal, I am assuming you have air con?

Serge, I have decided to build a Cittern for now. The harp guitar plans I am going to have to study for a while yet!!

Hesh: Advice noted. I won't ask why...

In the summer my Humidity, if not controlled runs between 70% and 95%, in the winter it drops below 10%. I get about two weeks of good humidity in the fall and spring So I ened up taking up to 23l (5 Galons) out of the air in the summer and in January and february I'll be adding at least that much. 42-48% is what I build in.

Sam, do you have any furnace or any heater in your shop? If humidity is too
high and your shop is already cold this is all you need to keep it in check,
and it's certainly cheaper than powering a dehumidifier.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

Sam,

Keep in mind that relative humidity is relative to the amount of water vapor the air can hold at a given temperature. A better way to judge how wet the air is is dew point. That reflects how much absolute water vapor there is in the air mass. When it goes up or down it means something. When RH goes up and down during the day it usually just means the temperature is changing. Joe Beaver39005.6008101852

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

David, I have an 800watt hallogen heater. Not only will it provide heat, it will provide the extra light I need when doing tricky jobs...

Sam, I've had my little dehumidifier in my spareroom/wood&guitar store for 3 years now. Ok I have to empty the tank every now and then as it's not plumbed in but it cost me only ?100 and at full power only uses 200Watts. It holds the RH very respectably and all for the price of a B&S set. Keep the room that your store closet is in at 45% RH and just keep your shop at the temperature that suits you and don't worry about the RH there. Just take your wood to the shop work on it and bring it back to the store room.

Colin

PS Don't believe what those digital RH meters tell you, they lie make sure to calibrate it against a standard first.

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Yes, I am with Hesh. My digital was off by about 10%. I ended up buying a couple of Abbeon's on ebay for cheap and they were very easy to calibrate and now I am much more confident about accurate humidity control.

I also bought a precise control for my humidifier and let that switch the unit on and off. The one that comes standard on the unit is not very accurate.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com