If you live in a place that experiences dry winters, you know how devastating dry air can be to your guitar’s finish, strings, and neck. With proper care, however, you can keep your guitar in top shape this winter and save money on costly repairs later on. Here are the three best ways to keep your guitar humidified this winter.
The Case for Guitar Cases
Unless you have a truly tightly controlled guitar storage room, you'll want to keep your acoustic or electric guitar in a hard-shell latching case during the winter. While this can make it a little more challenging to practice (having to open the case every time...and...out of sight, out of mind for some aspiring guitarists...), it's important to offer a layer of protection for your precious instrument. Soft-shell cases may offer protection from the wind and rain outside, but they do not offer adequate protection from environmental humidity/dryness changes.
Top 3 Guitar Humidification Devices
- The old fashioned way. You buy something that you must dip into distilled water weekly. You'll need to set an alarm each week (if you live in a very dry climate; you'll need to do this every few days). When your alarm goes off, you will have to open your guitar case, remove the humidity device, check for dryness, and immerse it in distilled water. Dry the outside with a cloth and place it back in the case. Here's an example.
- Here's the "done for you" method. These are by far the most preferable as they don't require any care on your part except to check it every few weeks. It's a gel pak which breathes. It will automatically disperse the humidity into your guitar case by simply laying one, two, or three gel paks in the case. It uses propylene glycol, water, and self-regulates. Carefree! Here's an example.
- You can go high tech! There are even remote monitors you can stick in your case which will send your minute-by-minute humidity levels to your phone or tablet's app. These are quite more costly, but, if you have a guitar you care about a lot and/or is quite expensive, it will be a sound investment. Often they come in a starter pack with the humidity gel paks included. Here's an example.
What They Don't Tell You
Your guitar is made of wood and very much wants to go back to the forest. The guitar shifts, moves and changes (expands/contracts) a lot from the moment the tree is cut down through to the guitar hitting the showroom floor. What's worse is when the guitar spends a long time in the store not being bought.
The big box stores typically don't do a great job of keeping their guitars cared for. Although they may have an "acoustic room" where the doors shut, I have found that customers walk in and out of the room so often that it's virtually impossible to keep the room at a constant humidity.
The small mom and pop stores typically do a much better job at keeping moderate humidity levels.
Avoid shipping your guitar in the cold, dry winter months and the hot, wet summer months. Shipping trucks offer NO temperature or humidity control in the cargo areas. Your guitar may also spend a long time sitting on a loading dock or shipping warehouse.
Buy local if you can, and visit the shop to see if any humidification efforts are made in the acoustic guitar section of the store.
If you must buy online, be sure to call or email a sales rep at the company and see if they can throw some humidity packs in your new guitar's case prior to shipping. If not, keep shopping. The better companies will work to earn your business and be glad to offer a little bit of humidity for your new guitar.
Spend the extra money on a hardshell guitar case - it's well worth it.
