!9# Guitar Maintenance - It 'your guitar to die slowly of thirst?

[if ]

[endif]

Sometimes you finger a button on the guitar and hear a buzzing sound or no? If you answered yes, then your instrument seriously and irreversibly dehydrated and probably headed for the cemetery.

This is the story of how I saved the life of my guitar seriously dehydrated.

My sad story

Last winter I remember, grabbed my guitar for a typical day from Gmail ... ah ... I mean, seriously training and found that my B string in an annoying humSound keys 4-9 I was wondering why suddenly did this, even if only for a few days before it was fine. I decided to ignore the problem and I hope it will disappear by itself.

Within days, the B-string keys stopped ringing, but not now play all 4-9. To make matters worse, the G-string had begun to sing.

At first I thought that some of my buttons were loose and had to be repaired. Then a horrible thought struck me. Had my guitar distorteddone because of extremely low humidity for typical winter weather? It was my precious instrument now in ruins?

I also asked if we could rehydrate and would do this to reverse the damage? Fortunately, in my case the answer was affirmative. It was not yet reached the point of no return. It was actually possible, the sound that I had learned to love, to restore it. The steps are as follows:

Moisture Measurement My Home

With a little 'research Ilearned that most of the guitars need an environment in which a relative humidity of 45% to 55%. An inexpensive, non-digital device called a hygrometer was at my local hardware store purchased for less than $ 10 dollars (USD).

For reasonable accuracy, I climbed on a wall, not the cold after about a commitment to the outside. I also avoided the wall places that explodes too close to the moist air is the bathroom and kitchen were common.

After mounting the hygrometer and allows them toacclimatize for 24 hours, I discovered that my guitar was constantly exposed, un-dressed, with a relative humidity of only 24%. Well, I had confirmed that it was dry, in fact, it was time to find a way to run the moisture lost.

How do I re-humidified My Guitar

I bought a humidifier, which was designed specifically for a guitar. He drilled a ½ "in diameter, foot-long, green rubber hose with about 100 small holes along its length. Inside the yellow tube spongeMaterial. Both ends of the tube contained a black plastic cap with one end attached to a string. The other end of the rope was attached to was a black plastic pot, large enough to cover the hole.

The idea was to cover the hole with the washer then hang the pipe water to penetrate into the body of the guitar. As moisture evaporates inside the tube, you rehydrate the wood so that it returns to its previous shape undistorted. The plastic sheet was developed to preventdrain the moisture that evaporates from the body of the guitar.

Here, this is the theory of everything, but as it worked in reality?

In about 24 hours, a simple visual inspection revealed from my guitar, which caused the partial rehydration of the wood of my guitar to begin to return to its pre-stressed state. The bridge, the device at the ends of the wires near the hole has rotated so that they began to slightly above the keys and then increasedRemoving dead or buzzing sounds in some leagues.

After 2 days I had noticed that the sound of Well G-strings are further improved. After a total of 4 days to check and re-wetting sponge humidifier, had even more, but better, the enthusiasm disappeared, not quite. At this point I wondered if it was the pipe-in-the-body too slow and does not allow all the guitar properly rehydrate.

Beyond the Big Guns: The need for greaterHumidity

I decided to use a standard desktop humidifier to increase the relative humidity throughout the house. I bought a Sunbeam model 705 ultrasound in a local pharmacy. Its capacity was about 5 liters of distilled water, as just about the amount of cold, distilled water vapor, could be bogged down in 24 hours.

It took about 4 days in the area to increase the relative humidity of 24% to 43%. During this period I have a guitar propped on a stand outside thehis case in the same room. I also removed the tube from the humidifier inside the guitar. At the end of four days dead and irritate the buzzing sound was gone altogether.

The bottom line to protect your guitar from arid environments

1 Put your guitar for very dry environments for long periods. This closes the trunk of your car during extreme heat or extreme cold. While offering a hard case or gig bag offers some protection, can not preventDamage in extreme conditions.

2 If you store the guitar in the first place and used in a room of your house then the whole room in the driest rainy season. Monitor humidity with a hygrometer Economic any hardware store. Goal 45% to 55% RH.

3 If you can not control the relative humidity in the house then make sure to keep the guitar in the case as possible. Use a guitar and guitar-in-case type of humidifier.

ThinkPrevention. Do not wait until you're in trouble before you begin to control moisture problems. And 'possible to dry to the point where you can do anything.