Humidification questions-NMC

[Steve Ostrander]

I bought a new Larrivee D-02 a couple years ago. After one year the bridge separated from the top. The company alleged that I over-humified the instrument, but they fixed it for me at no charge. Then this winter, the bridge split down the middle right through the bridge pin holes. The company now alleges dehydration and won't pay for the repair.

The question is, which is it? How could one be caused by over humidification, and the other be caused by dehydration? Because I have not changed the way I humidify in any way over the course of my ownership of the guitar. I use a case humidifier consisting of a canister with a sponge inside, and I always check the canister every week or so and it is always damp. I keep my instruments in my basement, which is cooler and more humid, especially in the summer. The luthier at Elderly saw no indication of dehydration, and wrote a letter to that effect. Still Larrivee refused to cover.

Over the last 40 years I have owned dozens of instruments and always humidified the same way. Never had any issues--until I bought the Larrivee. I love the guitar; it plays great and sounds great too. I just refuse to believe that this was my fault and I think Larrivee should have covered it.

Has anyone had a similar experience? Am I humidifying incorrectly? Any way I can improve on humidifying?

[Gutbucket]

I over humidified a Collings D1A a few years back. The top was swelled up high and the string action was very high also. I thought I might need a neck reset on the guitar that was only a couple years old. I called Collings and they said it was due to over humidification. Collings told me to set it out in the open in a dryer room for a couple weeks. Sure enough it "Shrunk" back down to normal but sounded dead for a good month before it came back. I was worried about loose braces but everything was fine. Five years later the bridge did begin to lift though. I'm sure it was from being to humid. At the time, the tech at Collings said 30% was more then enough to keep it humidified. Not sure if they still recommend that now.

[Folkmusician.com]

Hi Steve,

I don't want to speak to your particular situation. I'll just say that every instrument is different and some are more picky about humidity than others. For the years that I was in the repair business, I saw a whole lot of high-end guitars with cracks and other issues directly caused by lack of humidity. Some only 6 months old. Of course, it is extremely dry here and I was seeing the worse case scenarios. With our humidity levels, a case humidifier is rarely enough. I didn't see many over-humdified instruments, because it is near impossible to do in the high desert.

The common thing I would hear, is how they owned many high-end guitars, and this never happened to the others. I also noted that the ones it did happen to were a good representation of all the brands and no particular instruments singled out. Well, Taylors may have been the most likely to be in for fret ends, humps in the neck etc, but not any more cracks.

Humidity does fluctuate quickly, and because it is in relation to temperature, it is very difficult to guess. Here, it will be raining outside and our humidifier is still going. It may be a good idea to get a hygrometer or two and stick them in the cases and see what is going on. Put one right inside the guitar, then you will know for sure. Of course many hygrometers are not calibrated correctly, so you have to be careful there too.

Even if Larrivee won't step up, you'll know. Maybe you can document your routine and the hygrometer results and send that over two them as well.

[allenhopkins]

...It may be a good idea to get a hygrometer or two and stick them in the cases and see what is going on. Put one right inside the guitar, then you will know for sure...Even if Larrivee won't step up, you'll know...

Amen to that. Get some data. How your same basic environment could be first too humid, then too dry, is a bit of a puzzle, although seasonal humidity change, and the alternation of central heating and air conditioning, will significantly change the environmental humidity.

I own about 75 instruments, ranging from cheap to pretty darn expensive, keep 'em all in a basement that's never humidified, but is dehumidified in summer, and have never had damage from environmental humidity or lack thereof. I did have damage from one small flooding incident, and I suppose you could call that "over-humidification," but that was a one-of, a decade ago. I may be just lucky, of course, but I gave up using individual case humidifiers 20 years ago, and other than one 12-string bridge creeping forward due to string tension, I've escaped unscathed.

Not offering myself as an example, but seconding Robert's opinion that instruments, especially the higher-end ones, are highly individualized, and one may be unaffected, while another suffers damage. Hygrometers are a good investment; at least then you have some idea of the overall environmental humidity.

[Oliver A.]

I don't want to talk to the OP's case in particular as I have not seen the instrument in question nor can I verify the humidity levels that it was exposed to.

I will say that in general, I am not a fan of in case humidifiers. In a small confined space it does not take much at all to over do it. If you have absolutely no way of controlling the humidity in the room where you store your instrument and you run a heating system over the winter, then I guess it could be necessary but then you would need an accurate and reliable hygrometer in the case and it would need to be checked daily at a minimum. In my opinion, it is much easier to humidify a room and in many cases, a whole house.

It seems to me that the root of all humidity problems is knowing to a decent level of accuracy, what the %RH really is. I had a recent customer of mine ask me about what type or brand of hygrometer he should buy and I had no simple solution for him. In my experience, they ALL need to be calibrated and that is a problem for the average Joe. If he were in my area, I would gladly calibrate a hygrometer for him if he were able to drop it off. Unfortunately, he lives clear across the continent. The best that I could do for him was to send him a spare digital (non-calibratable) hygrometer which I knew to be reading 5% dryer than actual but even that was subject to change. When the battery gets weaker, the thing actually becomes more accurate at least in the critical 40% range. Anyway, I installed a new battery, mailed it to him and suggested that he use it to calibrate an analog hygrometer from the hardware store, setting the analog unit to read 5% higher than the digital but only while the battery is fresh in the digital and only when the ambient humidity is in the 40% range. The last part is because those hardware store hygrometers will read pretty accurately in the range at which they were calibrated but will become less accurate the further away from that set point they get. The oft sighted "salt method" of calibrating is great for humidifying cigars but the 75% humidity level is way to high to calibrate for musical instruments. For musical instruments, you want the hygrometer to be most accurate around 40%. That's because the further below that level you go, the greater the risk of cracking due to a lack of moisture content. By the way, with the thin woods of instruments, they can reach an equilibrium with the ambient humidity in less than 24 hours so you haven`t got a lot of time to keep things right.
Anyway, I could right a book on wood and humidity so I`ll stop it here for now except for to say that without knowing with a reasonable degree of certainty, what the actual humidity is around your instrument, it`s all conjecture.
I would highly recommend one of these.
https://www.amazon.com/Taylor-Precis...g+psychrometer
Knowledge is power.

P.S. If you would like to know more, here`s a link to my blog. Scroll almost all the way down for an article on humidity.
http://www.apitiusmandolins.com/Oliv...og%20Page.html

[Steve Ostrander]

What I have to go on is a built-in case hygrometer in my Travelite case which consistently reads over 40%. I also have hygrometers in all my other cases and they also read in the 40% range. Even if they are off a little, I was told by the repairman at Elderly that this is an acceptable range.

The humidity in Michigan can range from 90% in the summer to 10% in the winter. I have a room dehumidifier that I use in the summer the humidity gets too high. I check and refill the case humidifiers every couple days in the winter. My instruments are not just stuck in a closet and forgotten.

I have since learned from acoustic guitar forums that Taylors and Larrtivees are very sensitive to humidity.

[Folkmusician.com]

Steve,

The in case hygrometers in most cases are more of a decoration than a functional unit. It would not surprise me if every single one is severely off. As you get into high-dollor cases, some do have working hygrometers. The Travelite's do not work.

I have a bunch of hygrometers and recently added this one. For $9, I figured why not.
Odds are it will not be correctly calibrated, but it will be much better than the in case versions.
It will record the high and low humidity levels (reset by pulling the battery). If you check the range in the case and in the room, and record them for a few days, you will have a clear picture of what is going on. When humidity levels are 10% (which happens here too), it can be very difficult to maintain low 40's humidity levels. Especially with a heater running.

https://www.amazon.com/ThermoPro-Hyg...rds=hygrometer

[Gutbucket]

I have a cheap in case hygrometer in a Chinese fiddle case that has been stuck on 50% for 5 years. I'm going to pull it out and and operate on it. Got a feeling the little indicator needle is just painted on.

[George R. Lane]

What I have to go on is a built-in case hygrometer in my Travelite case which consistently reads over 40%. I also have hygrometers in all my other cases and they also read in the 40% range. Even if they are off a little, I was told by the repairman at Elderly that this is an acceptable range.

The humidity in Michigan can range from 90% in the summer to 10% in the winter. I have a room dehumidifier that I use in the summer the humidity gets too high. I check and refill the case humidifiers every couple days in the winter. My instruments are not just stuck in a closet and forgotten.

I have since learned from acoustic guitar forums that Taylors and Larrtivees are very sensitive to humidity.

The best thing you can do with the Travelite gauge is to rip out and throw it away. I bought a Caliber IV hygrometer that was recommended by a friend who smokes cigars. I also purchased a Boveda one step calibration kit and I recalibrate every six months. You can get them both from Amazon.

Here in Montana humidity can range from 80 % in the summer and 10% in the winter. I have my mandolin in a room that has infloor hot water heating system but, I still have a small room size humidifier running.

[Tobin]

I have a cheap in case hygrometer in a Chinese fiddle case that has been stuck on 50% for 5 years. I'm going to pull it out and and operate on it. Got a feeling the little indicator needle is just painted on.

If it makes you feel any better, my $200 violin case with built-in hygrometer has the same issue. It's stuck on 60%, even when my digital hygrometer reads 20% in winter while the furnace is running.

I'll never buy another case with a built-in hygrometer. They are junk.

[Mike Stewart]

What I have to go on is a built-in case hygrometer in my Travelite case which consistently reads over 40%. I also have hygrometers in all my other cases and they also read in the 40% range. Even if they are off a little, I was told by the repairman at Elderly that this is an acceptable range.

The dial instruments in the Travelite cases shouldn't even be included, IMO, because what happens is that people mistake them for hygrometers. "Even if they're off a little", that's a hypothetical that is unlikely to occur: the two I've got are wildly off. So off, I consider them to not be fit for the purpose of measuring humidity.

I wish I were at the house so I could look at the brand of the ones I've purchased (EDIT: George Lane got it: Caliber). Generally agreed to be accurate by reviewers, and my salt tests indicate that they are accurate out of the box (though they can be calibrated). But the hygrometers in Travelite cases, cheap cigar humidors, and the like are there to make you feel like you got something for your money. They are not intended to measure moisture in the air.

[Folkmusician.com]

These four images were just taken. Each is a different case. All cases were within 24" of one another. The room is at 44% Relative Humidity at the moment.

[AndyPanda]

These four images were just taken. Each is a different case. All cases were within 24" of one another. The room is at 44% Relative Humidity at the moment.

Is that the same gauge moved from case to case? Or is that four different gauges one in each case?

If that is four different gauges, I'd like to see the four gauges all removed from the case and set side by side in the room.

I've only had experience with Cigar Humidor gauges (but they look just like yours except for the brand and mine say "ideal" rather than "normal" in the 60% range). I've always calibrated them with the salt method - which is fine for cigars where you want 60% - but that isn't the best for instruments that, IMO, should not be anywhere near that wet (30% in my opinion). My personal feeling is that instrument wood should have been dried to about 10-15% before the instrument was built and they should be kept dry after they're built (like 30-40% max) - just my own opinion.

Check this post http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/en...Humidification

[Folkmusician.com]

Yea, I guess I wasn't real clear about that... These are 4 separate built in hygrometers in travelite cases. They are glued into the cases. Only one is close to the correct humidity, I imagine that is luck, versus it actually reading correctly. And of course, one is nearly 100% off! hehe

Ideal humidity for instruments is 45%-50%. 30% starts to set off issues.

[pops1]

I think these days instruments are built at around 45%. In summer here we have humidity in the 90% range and higher for months sometimes. Down south humidity is very high most of the summer. We don't have air and maybe I am lucky, but haven't had damage from humid conditions. Very dry conditions on the other hand are a different story. For may years I did repairs for a music store that had several stores and rented instruments to school kids in 4 states. When it got very cold in winter there was always a month with a huge amount of crack repairs. It was always the busiest month of the year.

[mandroid]

I suspect those gages are not calibrated to a standard. added more for show
A selling feature, and were cheap to add, to the case .. Is there any adjustment?

The ones going in cases for Museum collections would be made to a higher standard..

[mandroid]

My humidifier is Location . There is the Columbia River 200M from my Door . its Damp enough..