360/12 Humidity Issues

[Folkie]

Kira,

Thanks for your sympathy. I'm not quite sure how to go about climate-controlling my guitar area. For a while I ran a room humidifier over the winter and then a dehumidifier over the spring and summer. Maintaining them was a major hassle, and my hygrometers told me that I was nowhere near the desired humidity level anyway. And, unfortunately, I still had routine problems with my guitars. So I gave up on trying to control the climate and have been investigating other options.

That's great that your guitars are behaving. Yet another of many incentives for me to move out West!

Robert

[Folkie]

Well, I finally bit the bullet and bought a $200 dehumidifier to help maintain my guitars. I've also put a Planet Waves Humidipak in each guitar case.

Incidentally, the buzz and rattle I was experiencing on my 360/12 was due not to the high strings fretting out, as I'd thought, but to the nut grooves being too high on one side. I won't get the guitar back from the shop for a few weeks (my most trusted tech is always backed up), but it should be an easy job.

Robert

[doctorwho]

G;ad things are looking good for your guitars, Robert.

With regard to the side story that follows, keep in mind that i am a chemist ( here we go again ... ), and tinkering with chemicals is second nature to me. I also know about constant-humidity mixtures of inorganic salts and water, as chambers with constant relative humidity are commonly used for the storage of pharmaceuticals during stability studies.

I bought Humidipaks for my two Rickenbacker acoustics not too long ago. When one of the packs dried out, I went to the local music store for a replacement, only to find out that they were back-ordered. A week later I dropped by the store, and they still hadn't received them.

Frustrated, I decided to try to regenerate the dried-out pack. I put it into the steamer tray of my rice cooker, added about 1/2 to 1 cups of deionized water, and let it rip. I unplugged the cooker after the cycle was complete and left the pack where it was to cool down overnight.

The next morning, I checked the pack - it was rehydrated, albeit with some undissolved granular solid inside the pack. There was only a few light evaporated salt droplets in the bottom of the rice cooker, so the pack didn't leak its contents out.

IMO as a chemist, this is probably a reasonable method to regenerate these packs in a pinch, but I would certainly recommend that people replace their packs with the real replacement packs for critical storage.

If I gain more experience on the regeneration of these packs and their use, I will let everyone know.

[jdogric12]

Very cool, Gary. Science rules!

[doctorwho]

Very cool, Gary. Science rules!

[buchrob]

You may be surprised to learn that the common hardware store hygrometer is calibrated to +/- SEVEN PERCENT as attested to in the printed instructions.

In any event, what you want to avoid is big or sudden swings one way or another.

My ramrod-straight 650D left Arizona's 45% humidity and arrived in my northern 65% (I have a stream and a pond on that property) with a big back bow. A turn or so on the rod nuts and all has been good for over a month. My 330/6 in storage (never travelled south) came out of the case in perfect tune 6 months later.

I keep all my gear in a finished basement room that has a window air conditioner running 24 hrs a day.