How to Protect Your Acoustic Guitar from Dry Weather
How to Protect Your Acoustic Guitar from Dry Weather
If you own an acoustic guitar, you must be aware of the perils of cold and dry weather. You need to protect your acoustic guitar from the air with very low humidity as it can be damaging to the instrument's sound. Below, we take a look at a few tips that can help you protect your acoustic guitar from the very real threat of low humidity.
1) Use Humidifiers
Humidifiers are affordable and do a great job of keeping your instruments dry. If you do not protect your guitar you will end up paying for it in the summers. You may even have to buy new ones! Thus you must use humidifiers to maintain the humidity around your instrument. The correct way to humidify is to not just humidify the room but also properly humidify the guitar case in which the guitar is stored.
The best way to do this to place two Dampits inside the guitar case, one in the guitar and one near the upper part or near the headstock in the guitar case. Avoid using the sound hole cover provided with the Dampit. It will help keep your case humidified apart from the guitar itself. Another important thing to remember is that you must carefully remove any excess water from the Dampits or it may cause water spots on your guitar or case. Keeping the humidity at 50-55% should be your aim.
2) Use a humidity reader inside the case, not just inside your room
You must have a humidity reader in order to be able to determine the humidity levels in the air. The common mistake people make is keeping a humidity reader only for the room. Now, while this will tell you the humidity levels of your room, you also need to be certain of the humidity levels inside your guitar case. This is why you must keep a humidity reader in each guitar case which has an acoustic guitar in it.
You can purchase individual sensors or opt for a system where you have multiple humidity sensors that are small in size and are connected via wireless connection to the central large humidity reader. Such a system can be really handy if you have multiple acoustic guitar or other instruments to store. Thus you will be able to easily verify the humidity in each instrument's case without opening the case and disturbing the humidity of the air inside the case. Although it may seem too costly at first, you must realize that it will save you a ton of money that may go into the repair of your guitar.
3) Avoid opening the cases!
You must understand that it is important to leave the acoustic guitar in its case for as much time as possible. Every time you open the case of your guitar, you are not only exposing it to dry air but also destroying the humid environment of the case and this takes time to build up.
4) Take note of the room's humidity too
It may be possible to keep the cases at 55% humidity but it may not be possible to control the humidity to that extent in the room. However, you can still try and keep the room where your guitars are stored at 35 to 45% humidity. Every time you go out for a gig, you also need to make sure that the environment where you open up your instruments is not too dry. If it is dry, be sure to put the instruments back in the case as soon as possible and get the back into your home at 55% humidity. These tips can be a lot of help in keeping your acoustic guitar in good shape.
A guitar is a prized investment -- protect it!
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