How Long Should I Humidify Before Setting Up?

[NursingDaBlues]

Found a mandolin at an estate sale this weekend. No case; just sitting in a closet. Looks to have been very well cared for by the previous owner. However, I don’t have any idea how long the family or the estate sale company have been sitting on it; the person managing the sale said at least six months – likely longer.

Not an exceptional find, but a decent solid-wood Kentucky KM-500; probably less than ten years old. However, this is Colorado, with very low humidity. There’s some fretboard shrinkage. No cracks/spits. No separations. I’d like to get it fully humidified before I try any set-up. I’ve had it in my instrument room at around 44% RH since Saturday. Soundhole hygrometer is variable around 36%, but I feel that the room humidity is influencing that. My inclination is to treat this as if it were higher-end instrument because someone may be able to get some good use out of it one day. So my personal conservative thought is to leave it untouched for at least a month.

Should I leave it longer or am I being too conservative?

[Folkmusician.com]

I know it is hard to wait, but it could take weeks for it to stabilize. If you are doing a detailed setup, I would put it aside for while longer. Your month estimate is about right

[NursingDaBlues]

I know it is hard to wait, but it could take weeks for it to stabilize. If you are doing a detailed setup, I would put it aside for while longer. Your month estimate is about right

While I'm interested in the tone and playability, I more concerned about ensuring that the instrument has a decent chance to keep on playing. So, for me, a month wait is more than reasonable. I once had a similar experience with a vintage guitar that I purchased; in that situation I waited somewhere around 90 days before the soundhole hygrometer started reading 40%. Some of my peers felt that I was being overly cautious. That's why I decided to ask on the forum. Good to know that at least one other person thinks like me. (Of course, that might be truly scary for you).

Now here's the moral to this story: not to be morbid, but if you've got acoustic instruments, leave instructions on their care. Too many people don't know and don't know enough to try and find out.

[colorado_al]

Colorado can be really hard on acoustic instruments. Even a week unhumidified can result in damage to carved wood instruments, if they have a weak spot or unseen crack starting to form. I've seen fretboards and tops fall off due to months of not enough moisture and differences in contraction of differing woods. Smartest to wait until that instrument can properly rehydrate.

[TheGrayFox]

I've recently lucked into an Eastman MD605. The instrument has been stored, in its case, in a closet, unplayed for "a couple years."

The price was definitely right, and it is in new condition. Barely played. I live in New England, and humidify my apartment. It generally hovers around 38%. I am planning to get a case humidifier as well. Should I be waiting days or even weeks to play this instrument? Could I play it now, and set it up in a month or so safely? I don't want to do anything bad. This is my first real mandolin- I'd owned two garbage cans that were unplayable before it, both of which left my life promptly out of frustration and sadness.

[Folkmusician.com]

at 38% you are good to go! You are are not far off from ideal. Play away!

For the record, playing a dehydrated instrument is not a big deal, you just don't want to go filing frets, refitting bridges, etc...

[TheGrayFox]

Thanks, Robert! I appreciate the wisdom. Oddly, the humidifier entered my life before any instruments that required stable humidity. My wife and I just got tired of living in a dried out house all winter long. Man, has it made a difference!

[Folkmusician.com]

I hear that! Here in Reno, a house with central heat can commonly go down to 10% RH in the winter. Nose bleeds, skin feels like sandpaper and you can feel the burning in your lungs. It is surprising though, how few people humidify their homes here.

[EdHanrahan]

Hopefully not too much of a tangent ...

I ask this knowing that many thousands of 'teens and '20s lower-end Gibsons are out there, the remnants of the mandolin-orchestras' heyday, that have sat for decades in peoples' closets, attics, or basements before being pulled out to live a renewed life in our hands - lucky us! Sure, many of them have shrunken backs or other fixable maladies but they seem to resurrect just fine, at least in my humble opinion. So my question:

Does a time arise when an instrument has been left for SO long without humidification, or any human attention at all, that it becomes stable in its current condition? And after that period, might intentional humidification a) not have much effect, b) not be desirable, and/or c) be a bad idea? In other words, does glued-together wood eventually slow down or stop its "breathing" and become more inert?

My '17 A-1, w/ slightly shrunken back but otherwise happy, wants me to know!

[avaldes]

Hopefully not too much of a tangent ...

I ask this knowing that many thousands of 'teens and '20s lower-end Gibsons are out there, the remnants of the mandolin-orchestras' heyday, that have sat for decades in peoples' closets, attics, or basements before being pulled out to live a renewed life in our hands - lucky us! Sure, many of them have shrunken backs or other fixable maladies but they seem to resurrect just fine, at least in my humble opinion. So my question:

Does a time arise when an instrument has been left for SO long without humidification, or any human attention at all, that it becomes stable in its current condition? And after that period, might intentional humidification a) not have much effect, b) not be desirable, and/or c) be a bad idea? In other words, does glued-together wood eventually slow down or stop its "breathing" and become more inert?

My '17 A-1, w/ slightly shrunken back but otherwise happy, wants me to know!

Valid point, but over much of that interval these instruments were not in modern, near-airtight, forced-air-heat environments. I would guess old school radiators (and I mean that literally, because that's what we had in my old school) were much kinder as far as indoor RH. Although some places (like Reno, as Robert points out) are dangerously dry anyway.
As to your second point, I suspect you are right that over time wood becomes more stable dimensionally as humidity changes. That is the point of aging wood. I suspect kiln-drying gets the wood humidity down quickly, but the wood still has memory of having been humid, so it reacts more to humidity changes.

[NursingDaBlues]

Valid point, but over much of that interval these instruments were not in modern, near-airtight, forced-air-heat environments. I would guess old school radiators (and I mean that literally, because that's what we had in my old school) were much kinder as far as indoor RH. Although some places (like Reno, as Robert points out) are dangerously dry anyway.
As to your second point, I suspect you are right that over time wood becomes more stable dimensionally as humidity changes. That is the point of aging wood. I suspect kiln-drying gets the wood humidity down quickly, but the wood still has memory of having been humid, so it reacts more to humidity changes.

I do believe that wood can become stable over time in its home environment. Take it out of its environment and it’s possible that the wood can become unstable. However there can also be some variables at work as well.

Back in 1970, I picked up a 70-year-old Midland bowlback mandolin. According to its provenance, it had lived its entire life in Louisiana. It was in great shape and was a nice player for a very inexpensive instrument. For forty years, I played it regularly and the only maintenance I did was to change strings, oil the fretboard, and tweak the set-up. No cracks. No separations. No issues. Prior to my ownership, the only humidification it received was ambient Louisiana humidity; so thinking that it was stable I did not add any ancillary humidification. Then in 2012 I moved to Colorado. Without exaggeration, after two years in Colorado this mandolin literally fell apart. The top developed several cracks and the pickguard split and all of the ribs separated due to wood shrinkage. I have such a sentimental attachment to this little guy that I got it fully repaired. It now lives in a humidified instrument room with the rest of the choir.

On the other hand, I have a 1943 Martin 000-18, also from Louisiana and with similar subsequent care after my purchase. It made it through the Louisiana-to-Colorado transition without a problem.

I don’t know where the difference lies. Quite possibly one reason could be the grades of wood used in their construction and the way those woods were initially dried. Another could be the way an instrument is “seasoned” while in an owner’s hand; a well-traveled instrument, going from gig to gig in a variety of regions with varying RHs and temperatures, could potentially season and stabilize a wood.

The Midland, being an inexpensively produced mandolin, probably has a lesser grade of wood with minimal drying time. It’s also an instrument that lived in the owners’ parlor. The guitar, on the other hand, was constructed of the best materials that Martin could obtain considering war time constraints. It was also a “professional” and performed across the South and Southwest.

Nonetheless, these two as well my other instruments are now all humidified and will remain that way. I’m not taking any chances.