Winter is coming… Or maybe it’s here, regardless of the season it is important to be aware of extreme weather conditions and know the effects it has on your guitar. Ideally, you want to keep your guitar right around 45-50% humidity. Maybe you are the type of person who leaves their acoustic sitting in the worship center all weekend because you know, “I’m coming back to play in just 2-3 days. What harm could befall my baby?” You may be asking yourself why is keeping the humidity at 45% important? Well here is what happens if you leave your guitar exposed to the elements for too long.
- Excessive heat can soften glue joints
- Sliding bridge
- Action (String Height) Lower
- Concave Top
- Cracks / Opening Seams, to name a few
I know this because it happened to me. Here is a picture of my acoustic from a few years back after leaving it sit out in the worship center all winter.
What should you do now? I’m not an extremist when it comes to guitar humidity, I have been playing guitar for over 15years now and have owned guitars for over 15 years. If you have a very expensive guitar, humidity matters and personally I do keep those guitars under watch, especially after my mishap with my old acoustic (pictured above). If I am being honest with you, most times humidity doesn’t effect your cheaper guitar that already has 20 other problems. Even still here are 3 things you can do to keep that guitar watered and healthy:
- Leave guitar in a case. Seriously this will do wonders for you guitar maybe even bring it back to life.
- Get a guitar humidifier (looks like a sponge) here is one for 9$
- Avoid extreme temps!