How long do I have before it blows

[kurth83]

I brought a mandolin into work a few weeks ago (Eastman MD-305).

Before I did that I brought in a humidity meter, said 55%, great.

Brought it in, now it got colder and the meter is reading 25%.

How long do I have before I get damage, I don't dare open the case.

I can easily take it home this weekend, and then ferret around for a case humidifier.

Will it last 5 days in a hard case without self-destructing?

And, anyone got ideas on a case humidifier that can generate a nice 50-55%?

Things are so tight in there I am skeptical a case humidifier will even work unless its a sound-hole one.

[PVia]

Don't worry at all...get a sound hole humidifier, make sure it's moist every day while the RH is below 35 or so, and you'll be fine. If there's no case humidifier, your RH inside the case is very similar to the room RH anyway.

Nothing will self destruct...

[kurth83]

Ok, I opened the case to look, looks like one of those oasis ones (OH-26) will fit.

[allenhopkins]

Don't panic. Not every instrument exposed to low humidity for a reasonable time period develops problems. But it does make sense to humidify the mandolin. A Dampit will work on an oval-hole instrument, and probably the Oasis as well.

Keeping a mandolin at your workplace, where you presumably have no control over the overall environment, means you have to be more vigilant than at home, where you can adjust heat, move the instrument into a different room, etc.

If you notice the fret ends seeming to protrude beyond the edges of the neck, or if the action seems to be getting lower because the top arch is lowering, you're getting the effects of dryness. Most destructive would be a crack along the grain lines of the top, as wood fibers lose moisture, shrink, and pull apart.

Take heart, though; thousands of mandolins have lain neglected in uncontrolled environments for decades, and have survived to play once more. A bit of forethought and preventive care, and you should be OK.

[slk]

Last year the humidity went down to 19% inside my house. The top on my Martin was starting to drop as the luthier called it. I had a soap dish with sponge inside the case and that was not enough. I added an oasis and within two weeks all was good again with no problems to the guitar. Hopefully that will ease your mind some. All instruments are effected differently. You should be fine.....

What Allen said is dead on...

Steve

[kurth83]

Thanks guys, coming from the guitar world, I once had a guitar swell up when the RH was 70%+ for a few weeks. I could see the top bulging. I bought dehumidifiers and hygrometers and kept it at around 55 and never had trouble again. This is my first experience with overly-dry conditions, which I have been told are more likely to damage an instrument with cracking.

Anyway, the oasis is on order and will go in this weekend.

[HoGo]

What kind of hygrometer are you using? Some can be so far off with measurement to be totally useless junk. Unless you checked it against calibrated lab-grade hygrometer or at least did "salt test" at 30 and 75% you cannot be sure your measurements are correct.
Here is a pic of several hygrometers at one place measuring everything between 40 and 75%...

[kurth83]

I had the same thing happen when I bought hygrometers, I did the calibration thing with the bag of salts, I went through about 4 of them and they diverged wildly until I found this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Quality-Importers-HygroSet-Hygrometer-Humidors/dp/B000H6CZQE/

Cheap, small, and dead accurate (after calibration - before calibration off by up to 2% which is still pretty good).

I bought 3, calibrated them to where they agree with each other. I recalibrated one of them 3 years and a battery change later, and it was still dead-on.

[BCVegas]

How is the sound from carbon fiber mandolins? Living in the desert, I kind of wonder if that should be something to consider for my next step up.

[Ivan Kelsall]

One answer to all you guys in the US suffering humidity problems - come & live in the UK,all your problems will disappear 'cos the weather's crap all year round !. The weather's gone cold(er) right now & my mandolins sound tighter than a clam's a** !,:))
Ivan;)

[Ray(T)]

You should move down the road closer to me Ivan - For a couple of years, the snow has hung around for weeks which locks up a fair amount of humidity which drops allarmingly. So far, the only ill effect has been protruding fret ends on several of my instruments which have gone back to normal once the thaw has come.

[lenf12]

Here in Florida USA, humidification is not in our vocabulary. ;)

Len B.
Clearwater, FL

[KGreene]

Here in Florida USA, humidification is not in our vocabulary. ;)

Len B.
Clearwater, FL

Ha, I hear ya...I used to work in Clearwater....90/90/90 .... 90 degrees/90% humidity/90% of the time.... I can't take that anymore though.

[Ivan Kelsall]

Hi Ray - Well,i read a couple of weeks ago that our UK weather forecasters ( optimistic 'guessers') are forecasting the worst Winter for 50 years for this year. I well remember the Winter of '63 which lasted for months & is currently our worst of the last 50 years.
I had to slip & slide my way 18 year old self to work & back 2 miles on foot for weeks before any thaw set in = not very enjoyable,
Ivan

[Ray(T)]

I was still at school in 1963 and didn't care whether I got there or not! We find that, heading down-hill, the snow usually gives up in Whaley Bridge. There were 10 feet high drifts on some local roads well into March a couple of years ago.

[Mark Gunter]

"How long do I have before it blows?"

16 hours, 21 minutes 14 seconds, or so, according to my calculations. I could be off by a century or more.

Hope all is well with your instrument, being from Louisiana and now in west Texas, I guess I've just been lucky. Never fretted over such things, and never had a guitar fall apart on me, though I've seen plenty that have. Like these guys have said already, try not to panic over your meter readings. If the wood in your mandolin was as sensitive to these changes as your meter is, we'd all be in big trouble.

I have an acquaintance here who also worried over such things and began trying to artificially condition his instrument against damage. Whatever devices he put in the guitar case did the damage, and the luthier got his money for major repairs. Not sure if anyone else has any stories of people damaging their instrument in attempts to protect it, but that was enough for me to see, to not regret never having fretted over these things myself.