High humidity

[Mark Seale]

I live in an area of high humidity and was wondering if anyone else has to deal with this and what you do. If I build in my garage shop without controlling humidity, will I have issues when I go to drier climates?

[Luthier]

Yes. #First the wood should be properly seasoned before even working with it. #Second, try to condition the wood to the environment in which you will be working. #Third, don't think about building anything or gluing anything together in a humid environment. #You will only be asking for problems later.

Don

[John Bertotti]

How did the luthiers of the past deal with this? Did they only assemble in the winter, or perhaps they utilized some form of kiln? I mean the means by which we control out shops now is wildly divergent from those of say the 1800 or even early 1900 hundreds. I imagine fiddlesandbikes' garage has many of the same characteristics of some of the luthiers shops back then. Anyone know?
# # fiddlesandbikes I'm not trying to hijack your thread here just thought it might be relevant to your original question. I have been doing all my glue ups in the winter just to avoid the high humidity. I also let my wood sit in my shop for a year before I started using it. I think the rule of thumb is build in a drier climate rather then a wetter one. Shrinkage seems to cause more problems in instruments I think. Others correct me if I'm mistaken. John http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Mark Seale]

No sweat ReeSaber, your questions are the next ones on my mind. I might have some free time and money to play in my shop, but I wouldn't if I moved from my humid environment! So maybe this is more about shop design and environmental control. Living in the Houston area, there's always a good deal of humidity to deal with. I'm working on my first instrument in the house, but that's not going to do for long and all my machine tools are in the garage shop. Any thoughts on shop design or environment control are appreciated!

[Luthier]

That is some food for thought, John. I will try and look into that.

Don

[jpickin]

Mark,

Below is a link to a another luthier forum that I visit in addition to the Cafe and have found to be helpful. #This link is to a discussion I started over there with the very same question. #

Luthierforum.com discussion on humidity (http://luthierforum.com/index.php?showtopic=315)

The responses were varied, but to sum up... Avoid extremes in temperature and humidity and you will probably be okay. #If you have room store your wood inside, otherwise just keep it dry.

Johnny

[Luthier Vandross]

Seasoning is better than humidity control, while you build... old wood.


M

[John Bertotti]

Hey all doesn't anyone know how the luthiers of by gone days took care of this. John

[Michael Lewis]

Many of those instruments made "by luthiers of by gone days" have cracked, twisted, split, and fallen apart from suffering the extremes of the environment.

[sunburst]

What is the climate in Spain? I understand that the climate in Cremona Italy is generally mild and sunny with low humidity.
The luthiers of old, at least the ones that still have a legacy of surviving instruments for us to know about, were in these places, as well as other places in Europe. In those times most instruments built in this country, (USA) were built by members of the tribes that were here and didn't include guitars or mandolins.

IMHO, humidity control is a good idea for the building area, but as mentioned before, if you avoid the extreems you are usually OK.
As for gluing in the winter, it's much easier to get a good glue joint with hide glue in the summer.
I'm told that the CF Martin company used to keep the glue room at at least 90 degrees F year round! In august it could be 100 or more. I've heard they had those cast iron steam radiators fastened to the wall extending out horizontally over the work benches to warm the parts before assembly.
One way to lower relative humidity is to raise the temperature.
Most of us these days prefer air conditioning and have to heat the parts to glue.
By the way, I just checked my hygrometer and the relative humidity in this room right now is 55%. I'm in central Virginia and the weather outside is warm hazey and humid. I haven't turned the airconditioner on yet today because it's still cool in here from the air conditioning yesterday and from the shade of the trees that I didn't cut down when I moved here.
What I'm saying is, air conditioning is all I really need to keep the relative humidity in control in the summer. I have more trouble keeping the humidity up in the winter.

[John Bertotti]

So can I surmize a real low humidity can be as detrimental to build in as a high? I was trying to keep things as dry as possible, was thinking about expansion to much. I am running between 35 and 58% humidity depending on the time of year. John

[amowry]

On option for humidity control is to have a box that you can keep parts in while you're not working on them, and just control the humidity in the box, e.g. with a light bulb in the summer. It's much easier to control a small space than a big one. This might be feasible if you're just building a few instruments.

[resonant68]

I've built three mandolins.Two were in my house.The Relative Humidity (RH) was between 35 and 50 %.
They turned out fine,and still play and sound good.
My concern now is...what is the humidity of the buyers home/living conditions?
Should this matter in the building process?
Should I match the temp/RH of the building location to the temp/RH of the buyer?
Is this possible?
Is it important?
How long should I keep the wood in "my" environment before it is "workable"?
The wood in my last mando came from Bruce over a year ago.From Oregon to Alabama.The first mando from it is my best sounding mando yet.I had the wood for a year before building.I play this mando daily and the wood seems stable to me.Even when I take it outside(in high south Alabama humidity).But are there any "rules"?


I forgot to mention that Alabama R.H. goes from one extreme to the other with the changing seasons.And all my work (other than some sawing and finish work)was done inside my house with some form of air conditioning/heat unit running and R.H. remained between 35 and 50%.