Guitar humidification

[Jersey tuning]

I use humidipaks in most of my guitar cases, especially because this time of year the humidistat in our living room measures 30 % RH, despite the use of a room humidifier.  My Taylors, with their notable wood moisture content stabilization process, show no hardening up of the humidipaks, despite the fact the packs date to last spring!  My new Froggy Bottom sucked the moisture out of its humidipaks in 3 weeks!  Quelle surprise.

[mgap]

I use humidipaks in most of my guitar cases, especially because this time of year the humidistat in our living room measures 30 % RH, despite the use of a room humidifier.  My Taylors, with their notable wood moisture content stabilization process, show no hardening up of the humidipaks, despite the fact the packs date to last spring!  My new Froggy Bottom sucked the moisture out of its humidipaks in 3 weeks!  Quelle surprise.

This time of year I have to humidify my cases a lot.  I use the Oasis between the strings in the sound hole, and I buy travel soap carrying cases with wet sponges and holes drilled in them for the head stock area.  This is all I need.  I use to try to humidify my whole room, but that was a lot of work.  I would put in about three gallons per day to keep it up to 45%rm.

I believe it was Edward(I could be wrong) that suggested the travel soap carrying cases with holes drilled in them and wet sponges.  That really works well.  The headstock area can hold them, they only need to be refilled once every few weeks, and it is cheap.

[mikeguywest]

The soap container is a great idea, and it's cheaper than the Planet Waves one that I used to use in the headstock area. I used the Dampits in the soundhole hanging from the strings rather than one that fit between the strings as they tended to stretch the strings out of tune. As long as the humidity is good in the case you're ok. Even using the Humidipak system now I continue to monitor the in-case RH with a digital hygrometer.

[Carlinla]

I'm using the soap container program for the wood guitars.

Like mentioned above - my place is staying in the low 30% humidity range since we had to start heating...  but the guitars sound fantastic as they stay lubed with the sponge and soap containers in the case.

Of note though...  I placed the remote hygrometer unit inside the case with the guitar and soap case and the reading was only four percentage points above the regular room atmosphere... so the air in the case was not even close to the factory 50% (?).  Still the guitar feels and plays great so the wood must be getting enough moisture to do what it needs to do.

Carl

[Earl]

Depending on the case and the guitar, I use either the soap dish or a round container from Crystal Light drink mix.  Cutting the Crystal Light container down to about 3.5" long makes it fit perfectly in the cutout space of all my Taylor CE's.  This lets me put more sponge volume in the case and therefore need to re-wet them less frequently.  For guitars without cutaways or in some hard cases without a lot of extra space around the head stock, I use either a soap dish or a similar container in the accessory box inside the case.  ACE Hardware sells fairly large utility sponges that can be cut down to fit nearly any container.

I used to live in Alaska, where winter REALLY gave us low humidity problems -- 12 gallons a day to get the house UP to 25% RH, and that rotted out window sills over time due to frost build up on the cold glass.  The two carbon fiber Rainsong's were the only guitars I could hang on the wall safely.  Every other guitar had to live in a hard case with at least one (sometimes more) humidifiers, and those had to be re-wet weekly.  At least summer was more moderate.