yeah. you're welcome. there are quite some basics every guitarists should know to protect their guitars. We should not totally detuned the guitar too as sudden change of tension can affect the guitar longevity too. whenever i replace strings, i will always do it one after another, but not removing all.

Really hope we can continue to make this thread active again

thats generally advisable if your guitar is kept away for a long period of time

the truss rod should be balanced with string tension, you can warp the neck by leaving it under tuned for a while

conclusion long period tune down, and short term just keep it in tune? how bout guitar with locking tuners 3kk? cause i havent been playing my ibby and jackson for a while now, wonder what adverse effects if i just let the strings rust there holding that tuning (i dont dare to destring it as its a big hassle to restring them all at once rather than one by one.)

imho its not much of an issue, least I've not heard, experienced or read any first hand experience with regards to necks being warped by being in the case for a long period of time. my gf's guitar a yamaha C30 is still in playable condition despite it being left in the bag for god knows when. I'm sure there are plenty of general hobbyists who have their guitars stored in some forgotten stash but can be played at anytime.

the main killer is temperature changes, i had to refret an entire guitar because of one uber hot summer. you can have a guitar in impeccable state of service only to get it destroyed by one cold winter. also theres another thing on bad wood, which can happen any time but its impossible to lay the blame on.

for guitars like ibanez your worries are much lesser, its laminated neck makes it far stronger than any 1 pc neck.

or if all else fails and you are still dead worried, sell all your guitars and buy a tele.

not so much of what we have discussed. but beware of extreme climate change. my guitar travelled from Malaysia to Scotland for study. it was beyond repair as the crack on the neck was too severe. intonation was badly affected

actually I start moving towards stratocaster already nowadays, any of my frens strat ill go crazy on testing the necks radius and awesome pups. was just taking out them acoustics cause i started to learn some awesome jazz solo piece from lickbyneck.com (me done with when i fall in love , going to learn fly me to the moon next!) thx for the wisdom 3kk much appreciated!

lol no thanks la, and wisdom ....a bit too much

jom la if you are around kl you can come try my guitars lol

hi guys
newb here
i like play guitar very very much
but skill noob

thanks for this
i jus know this, normally i cut off all the string and re-string all

am no expert here. But these have been the info I learned in the years. So not sure which is right which is wrong. But I think it makes sense to me by removing all the strings out of sudden will make the guitar neck "move" too much? And by detuning each strings about 2 to 3 turns every time right after playing in order release some tension, I learned this from Sakurai Kohno website. I think it makes a little sense to me by having the tension strength in between to reduce stress to the guitar neck in long run?? I'm really not sure about all this, but I've been practising this since, just to be safe.

But I can confirm the humidity factor is extremely crucial to the guitar!!! My earlier Spanish guitar was badly damage when I brought it with me to Scotland for 2 years. In Malaysia, the average humidity can be sky high at 70 -80%. Yet in Scotland, and due to winter in-door heater, the room humidity can be as low as 30%. My guitar was badly damage and I've learn a huge huge lesson from this. If the guitar stay in the same country, it should not be a much problem. But do aware that above 70% of humidity can badly affect some guitars depends on the origin of the wood, where the guitar was made and so on. And never put the guitar in the car, leaving it in the car under the hot sun!!

i really don know bout the detuning string too, i think i will try to pratice this, thanks for the sharing bro
about the humidity, do you have any sharing? i browser thru the net mostly ppl suggest put silica gel in the hard case, but what i normally do is jus put on guitar stand and cover with a cloth.

i rarely do anything to my guitar about humidity. I don't think it is much of a problem. If you put in an air conditioned room, the humidity would be quite perfect. Just don't put the guitar at a place with very warm and lack of air flow. Such place during rainy days humidity can raise up above 80% in Malaysia. As long as the guitar in at around the same airy place in Malaysia, I think it is more than fine.

okok
than great， i just no need to do anything about tat
thanks for ur sharing

humidity in msia can easily hit 70 for no real reason, dont need rainy days. also an air conditioned room requires the room to be rather small for it to dry, basically the environment needs to be quite strict.

to get good humidity you need a hygrometer, you can get one for RM5 or a few hundred bucks, id suggest the latter if you are very anal about it although i use the former cause I'm a cheap bastard. seems ok for now the guitar has not died yet

the RM5 ones need calibration and can be vastly inaccurate +/- 10

without such a tool we are chasing ghosts on the whole humidity logic,

after that the next issue is your case, you need a hard case or at least an area where airflow is limited.

put desiccants in, you can get this from giant, they normally last 2 weeks or so, during rainy seasons less.

read your readings on the hygrometer, it has to fit your recommended numbers, (martin is around 45-55)

now comes teh caveat,

this only works for full solid guitars, if you own a laminate top in any fashioin (double top) dont bother

this generally makes your guitar sound louder and more trebly/balanced,

you can leave your guitar alone out in the open and not experience any harm whatsoever to your love, it would just sound muddy on certain days or on all days.

what you have suggested is good. But for a normal size room with air con, it is about 40% to 50% humidity, at least it is for my rooms. Problem is, once it is turned off, it is true that the humidity can raise to 60% and at times more than 70% in no time. I've a huge silicon gel pack which can be electronically dried and reuse. I will post a picture of this device and try it first in my guitar case. I will let everyone knows about the result. about the hygrometer, you are right too. I have a few, one for my room, one for my camera dry box, and another for my guitar. Try get the adjustable ones. It is better because we can recalibrate it every 6 months. It is super easy to recalibrate a hygrometer, just search it in the web and there are tons of guides with the similar method. You just need little salt and water and a small cap and a plastic or container to do that.

This post has been edited by precsmo: Jun 22 2015, 11:37 AM

my room has a difficulty in keeping 40-50% in particular due to the toilet being connected to it, i think if i change the posistion of the guitar it would be fine

speaking of which i haven't recalibrate my hygrometer for years

You should calibrate the hygeometer. They can run off a lot!! And not accurate at all as a result.

tell me about it, lol