Repair Corner: Humidity and Wood Instruments
With the cold weather coming on many of us have already started kicking on those heaters for the first time, and that means lower humidity levels. Some of you may already know the adverse effects that low humidity can have on wooden instruments, but those of you who don't here's a few things to remember. The relative humidity in the environment that you're storing the instrument in should be about 50%. Once you get down in the mid to low 30's you're really tempting fate. Low humidity can cause:
•cracks in the body and particularly the fingerboard when it is made of unfinished rosewood or ebony
•sharp fret edges on guitars ad basses
•low action (string height) due to the soundboard drying out and sinking. This can casue string "buzz" or "fretting out"
You can avoid many of these problems by:
•Using a soundhole humidifier for your instrument (pictured above)
•installing a hygrometer in the room you store the instrument in or in the case to measure the relavtive humidity
•using a room humidifier
•keeping humidifiers full
Using a soundhole humidifier is an inexpensive and simple way to give you some real peace of mind during the dry days of winter. Heed these warnings and you might just avoid a trip to our repair bench this winter!
