humidity

[5544]

I had an experience of taking an acoustic into a well known store in the UK the other day, hoping to trade it in. I was told that the guitar had a wet top and it had failed the test for trade in. I was a little surprised since the guitar was kept in a humidity controlled room, and also in its case.
I went home and checked my:-
Martin OM28 (very gently curve behind the bridge.)
My Atkin OM essential ( much greater curve behind the neck)

both guitars action are great, they play great and there are no other oddities.

I am not convinced this is a Wet guitar issue?
Infact I have read elsewhere that you would expect a curve to exist.

am I wrong?

many thanks

[Buddy1]

What are you using to accurately measure the humidity?

[Robin, Wales]

I'm interested in how you humidity control the room you keep your guitars. It would be impractical for me to do that over here on the Welsh coast as summer and winter the rooms in our house are 60%+ on average - I couldn't run a de-humidifier 24/7 as it would cost too much and I would be continually emptying it!

I used 4 x Bovida High Absorbency packs in my Martin D-18 case and that kept the case environment around 50% to 55%. I used digital hygrometers in the case and in the room to keep an eye on things. The room would be running at 60%+ but the case environment was always 50%-55% with the packs.

All my other instruments are just kept in their cases (no room or case humidity control). My guitars are laminate b/s and I bought them second hand. They are well seasoned by now and don't move. There is no sign of excess bellying on the solid spruce tops, despite living in 60%+ year round.

I doubt that you have a "wet" guitar. But new guitars can have more of a tendency to move with changes than older ones. I would get a couple of small digital hygrometers that you can keep in the room and in the cases just to check what's going on.

[abn556]

We are just getting into the humidity season here in deep south Texas. Yesterday I turned on the music room AC and dehumidifier for the first time this season. The humidity in the room had gotten up to 73% during an early AM thunderstorm. I usually try to keep the music room at 45%.

What I really need is a vented dehumidifier. Some way to vent the hot air exhaust from the unit. The dehumidifier is making the AC work harder as the unit produces quite a bit of heat, which is not what we need in South Texas.

[rokdog49]

Oh boy, the humidity topic has reared its head.
Time to get my popcorn.

[rllink]

Just what "test" did they do to determine it had a "wet top?"

[warfrat73]

There's not nearly enough information in the OP for any of us to provide an informed response.

[donlyn]

humidity

Not taking another trip over humidity falls in a barrel. Done that enough over the years, including a just-posted entry in another thread about humidity and padded gig bags,
"Entering the world of 12 strings"
https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/...d.php?t=685168
post #33.

But there is another part of this post that rings true. Most flat-top guitars do not have flat tops or bottoms. There is often a slight curve in them which may seem like a 'belly'. It is quite possibly part of the design.

Somewhere there is a post containing the design specs for a Gibson J-200. Both the top and bottom have that slight built-in radius. Maybe not in this site; maybe under a Gibson related site, and not necessarily a forum. I found it years ago after while researching my Gibson J-200.

Be well and play well,

Don
.

[birdsong]

Originally Posted by rokdog49

Oh boy, the humidity topic has reared its head.
Time to get my popcorn.

I tried to resist clicking……. I really tried. 🙈 But then I just had to look ….😳😂

Although this is something we deal with all the time where I work as a museum curator- as noted above there’s just not enough info here for us to give a (good) response.