We all know our country is extremely humid, with an average of 80-90% humidity level. That's extremely wet and may cause guitar tops and back to swell, high action, lacquer checking, at the same time may also cause the bridge of the guitar to lift.

Wonder if you all dehumidify (dry) it on daily, weekly, monthly basis or never care about doing it at all?

Most of the builders kept the factory at about 40-45% humidity level, so its kinda important for us to maintain our precious instruments.



You don't have to do this if your guitars are made from Vietnam, Indonesia or China. You can always watch their factory tour on youtube.

This post has been edited by gas4martin: Mar 20 2016, 12:33 AM

i only put my guitar in its case with the silica gel beads...

This post has been edited by ciwi1166: Mar 20 2016, 08:54 AM

yes. most people in malaysia would rather buy other things than using the money for a proper dehumidifier RM 600- RM 1000. I had a bad experience so i don't want let it happen again.

what bad experience? care to share...?

I remember few years ago, i brought my guitar to bentley music, they didn't offer any advise on dehumidifying it. The top was swelling badly, and all they did was lowering the saddle and adjusting the neck which is total bullshit coz it will make it even worse... long term.

Dehumidifying would actually bring down the swell back to normal.

I also had some lacquer checking on my nitro finish guitar.

4 main scenarios:

1) Top/ back bulging (swelling)
2) Bridge lifted
3) High Action
4) Guitar finish checking

i believe that lacquer checking is more a by-product of the top moving...
nowadays also arent there guitars that are made with a slight arch in the back already?

lol

i chuck desiccants from giant and put a cheap RM5 meter in my guitar case

works tho.

worse comes to worse, GP can refinish it for u back to brand new USA standards

nitro is one of the best finish already used by the oldest guitar company, e.g..martin, gibson.

The worse i've seen is polyurethane finish used by modern guitar builder, for instance... taylor guitars. polyurethane is essentially plastic.

This is what happen to a 900 series taylor

u have to care it like a baby..

The sound wont be the same after you refinish. It has to be wet sand first.

I rather have the lacquer checking.... Finish checking is mojo in my eyes

and charge me 7k for it

ahh the good ol poly crack, flake, peel

one must be very unlucky to get that

i believe martin also have a line of poly finished guitars?
while taylors only moved to poly sometime in the late 90s right?

Martin only uses nitro.

even on the mexican models?

Mexican models are satin finish

yes, satin...but nitro or poly?
u can also achieve a satin finish with poly.

Yup you are right, only x series Mexico made uses Poly but that's not the point Coz it's satin. You won't see any peeling like the ones on poly gloss finish

hmm i guess that would depend how many coats the satin had...i havent handled an x-series before...so no idea.
but if its a very thin wipe, i guess thats pretty nice...would be just as good as a nitro thin wipe.
but if say a 3 or 4 coat satin finish would very likely still peel.

i put dehumidfying bag and music nomad humireader to monitor the progress.

it works well but the dehumidfying bag needs to be replaced every 2 weeks once. the RH maintains between 46% - 55%.



This post has been edited by juicyliana: Mar 22 2016, 12:56 PM