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

one thing about that if not mistaken is u should make sure it can cover the whole bag area, and not just a small area where u place it at...else needless to say kinda pointless.

Exactly. Kinda pointless. I rather drying the guitar up

those nitro checking looks lovely!

I just googled, they actually do make dry box for guitars

..and I thought they only made them for lens/camera gear

i clip it to the guitar hole and place the guitar in the case to control the RH in the case instead of the entire room.

does that still work?

I've seen one guy in sg convert a cabinet into a dry box

I'm thinking of doing that

If you have one or two guitars is logical. What if you have more than 10 guitars? Buy another cabinet? Houses in sg are small, waste space.

I don't like the idea of clipping to the sound hole, long term will damage the top, eg. Dent or scratch.

Somehow u need to suck out the moisture out of the wood. The best and faster way is to schedule time like twice a week or once a month or every two months.

You don't need to do this for laminated wood or low end guitar. Well u could do if you want but you don't need to do that often, maybe every 6 months or 1 years once.

how do u suck out the moisture from the wood?

i do that only to my taylor full solid. the laminated ones just leave it as it is and it is still running good.

i guess depends how insulated the bag / case is? cos there's always the neck to also look after.
the best way really tho is to be richfag and put in aircon room.

#richfag #TanSriGP

Place the dehumidifier facing the guitars, it can store up to 1.8 L. How to know when to dehumidify ? You can feel the neck angle moved and the guitar goes out of tune. After you dehumidify, it will go back to normal.

You don't need to be rich to use aircon 24/7. All you need is lobang.....

Aircon would work since its a sucker, but make sure the aircon is on 24/7 else temperature and humidity changed would harm the guitar. I remember I had one guitar shipped all the way from extreme dry cold weather Canada to wet humid hot weather in Singapore, end up the guitar had lacquer checking. Dealers and builders won't compensate you for lacquer checking.

In Malaysia you can call someone to adjust the meter, I dunno how they do it but the electric bill won't go beyond RM50. I had a friend who has a huge salted water aquarium, he never turn off the aircon coz it has to be run 24/7 and his paying less than RM 50 every month for electric bill.

Downside he needs to service the aircon every 3 months.

In singapore you don't want to get yourself involve in doing illegal stuff. I don't think anyone wants to do it anyway....

having said that the most practical and economic way at least for myself is to use a dehumidifier

This post has been edited by gas4martin: Mar 24 2016, 01:29 AM

Large used dehumidifier @ super cheap price.

Dehumidifier Carousell (USED)

This post has been edited by gas4martin: Mar 24 2016, 10:50 AM

Just put it into the case, and place in aircond room. The aircond only on during night when u sleep and sometimes in the day...no need 24/7.
The proper case will restrict the fluctuations of humidity.

As for the dehumifier beads...tried that route before..even bought a whole large metal can of it...and even the giant store humidifiers where it collects water...place inside the case.. use to do that only when u do not have air cond.

Been storing my taylor 310 that way for more than 10 years in aircond room chuck under the bed, and a Norman solid top as well.

how much is your electricity bill in a month?

Can't quantify the electricity bill, as i only on the aircond during night time mainly and daytime only when in room.
But i do not turn on the aircond specifically just for the guitars, the guitars basically tumpang the aircond only when its switch on for daily use.

But i do believe that quality cases like the Taylor stock hardcase makes a difference in regulating extreme fluctuating in humidity...compared to a bare guitar in a aircond room that switch off-on periodically..

The other DIY method i previously practiced was, i put a few humidifier bead packets into a mini ziplock bags, and punch holes on it. Then i attached a string to that bag, and loop it to the bridge pins. Then the ziplock bag goes into the guitar thru the soundhole, and store the guitar in the case.

When i wanna play, i just pull out the ziplock bag. And change periodically when it turns color.

I was able to buy like 10kgs of these humidifier packets many years ago by chnace from a supplier, but now i got no idea where to source this stuff.

now i use the cosway dehumidifier and clip it to the sound hole using music nomad humireader. the RH is the case can be maintained between 46% - 52%. once the bag turns fully gel up, the effectiveness dropped and it's time to change a new bag.

daiso.

If u put silica gel beads inside the bag with the guitar will it make the guitar too dry?is too dry gonna damage the guitar?

This post has been edited by lockheed90: Aug 10 2016, 08:45 AM

i think dry is good. best is cold and dry.

what is not good is heat, like leaving ur guitar in car under hot sun. of coz it's dry but the heat gonna destroy ur guitar.

just my 2 cents.

here? no

overseas? maybe

one thing to take into account is that you need not just silica gel but a hygrometer , which you need to monitor that the guitar stays around 40-50% ish humidity

the good part about it is, due to our relatively stable weather, half the time you dont have to worry about it and majority of the time the worse case scenario is you get a bloated top.


dry is actually worse,

in general comfortable surroundings is the best, as long as you are comfy, the guitar will be fine

once the heat goes up and you feel too hot or too try that you feel like you are getting sore throat, then its bad

So by just leave it in my bedroom is ok enough?since our climate is quite humid as long as its not under the sun

its not as simple as that

basically the first question is, is it a laminate or not?

if its laminate, then you can not worry about it, they are quite resilient

if its not, then you need to read the manual, what are the right conditions for the guitar

for most cases its no a problem (I've never seen guitars go bad due to weather here), but theres no harm just double checking

taylors and ibanez have gone bad due to weather here

i never bother to do anything with my gibsons, just leave it in their cases for yrs and they're still fine.

most US guitar makers keep around 45-50% humidity in their factories anyway...something thats not hard to achieve here.
the real danger is in getting too dry cos then it'll start to crack, thats why they invented humidifiers.

my cheap cort with solid top and back i just leave on my guitar stand, no warp whatever still in tune etc.
guess local weather doesnt affect it cos china weather also probably quite similar...i doubt they maintain any form of humidity control there

Ive been reading on the internet about humidifying their guitars. Since maybe they live in a cold and dry country and we here living in a humid country here dont need to humidify is it? As long as need to monitor the humidity level and dehumidify it if needed

P.s my guitar body is satin finished btw

we need to dehumidify , not humidify, we have too much moisture in the air. on any given day 60% - 70% is very normal, and during rainy days this goes up.

also this depends if your guitar is in an aircon room, aircon rooms auto dehumidify when its on, so the effects are minimalized

finish has nothign to do with it, its what type of wood and construct

Guys, tho this thread has been long dead, I want to ask should I leave windows and door opened for air circulation or am I better off seal up my room as much as possible and use dehumidifier machine? Or should I just go with case dehumidifying? But I would took out my guitar for practice frequently, would case dehumidifying works?

Both my electric's metal hardware corrode like no ones business.

This post has been edited by LYK2004: Dec 11 2023, 11:50 PM