Gah - acoustic ding!!

jellyroll

Get a cheap hygrometer from Amazon to monitor the humidity of the room - especially in winter. 

jellyroll

A ding won’t kill your guitar. Humidity (or lack of) could. 

thomasross20

I do have one.. stopped working. Time to get it working again! 

ToneControl

thomasross20 said:

I do have one.. stopped working. Time to get it working again! 

hygrometers often disagree, get 2 different brand ones and compare the readings

RandallFlagg

richardhomer said:

RandallFlagg said:
electrics tend to get screwdriver marks where I slip from undoing a cover plate, removing a pickguard or just adjusting intonation.

Have you actually kept an electric long enough to know this is true?

No, that's why I prefer to buy relics which have the screwdriver dings already added

jellyroll

ToneControl said:

thomasross20 said:

I do have one.. stopped working. Time to get it working again! 

hygrometers often disagree, get 2 different brand ones and compare the readings

I bought 3 different ones recently (one for each guitar case - I only realised afterwards that each case is probably going to be the same) but I tested them in the room first for a few hours.  All were within 1% of each other. They may not be super accurate but I’m confident they’re good enough to give a sense of whether its “comfortable” for a guitar. Amazon have lots of them for £7 - £10. 

stickyfiddle

I bought my Martin used with a few small scratches. I actually spend half a day polishing some of them out when I first got it, but happy to have it not be 100% mint. Makes it much less stressful if add more "character" 

Having said that, the cat once knocked my CC336 off the sofa a took a chunk of finish off the back edge. That was quite painful - worse than anything I've ever done to a guitar myself! 

thomasross20

Just fyi hygrometer showing 60% with range 58-63%

BahHumbug

My acoustics tend to get played quite a bit, at home as well as out and about.  The same for my current ‘go to’ electric.  So, when they are home they live on stands so I can grab them easily to play.  However I only have two stands, and I now see this as a good thing as it forces me to not have too many guitars ‘out’ at once.  Anything that’s out and hasn’t been played for a few days gets put in it’s case.  
All that said, I’ve come to the conclusion that the only way to avoid dings is to be very careful when handling them.  At the end of the day it doesn’t matter where they live, the dings usually happen when they’re in your hands.  I learnt my lesson a few years ago with my Taylor 712ce (my first expensive guitar).  It has several little dings and knocks on the top, body edges and headstock, all because it gets used a lot and I wasn’t careful enough.  I still love it though.  I’ve had a Brook Torridge for about a year and a half now.  It gets played quite a bit, but miraculously I have been careful with it and it remains ding free.  I’m also more careful with the Taylor these days.
On the subject of humidity, I think it’s worth figuring out whether you have a humidity problem before starting to mess about with humidipaks.  I bought a humidipak once, without really thinking, but soon got bored of using it.  I sometimes notice a change in action on my acoustics, going from summer to winter, but not enough to cause concern.  I think if you’re in the middle of a large land mass like the US, or in an urban heat island like London, then conditions will get extreme enough for long enough, to warrant some humidity countermeasures, but for most of the UK it shouldn’t be a big problem.

jellyroll

I thought humidity was just a US and exotic place problem too....until the frets started poking through the edges of my fretboard on my £4000 acoustic....

stickyfiddle

jellyroll said:

I thought humidity was just a US and exotic place problem too....until the frets started poking through the edges of my fretboard on my £4000 acoustic....

I had the binding pop off my custom la cabronita a few years back following our move the Middle East. I assume that was due to humidity, since we have AC keeping everything between 21 and 24 all the time, but that does dry the air at the same time. No issues with acoustic yet, but I’ve had several necks tending towards needing truss rods to be loosened. 

BahHumbug

jellyroll said:

I thought humidity was just a US and exotic place problem too....until the frets started poking through the edges of my fretboard on my £4000 acoustic....

It’d be interesting to hear About what conditions led to this.  Where in the world, time of year, weather etc.

jellyroll

BahHumbug said:

jellyroll said:

I thought humidity was just a US and exotic place problem too....until the frets started poking through the edges of my fretboard on my £4000 acoustic....

It’d be interesting to hear About what conditions led to this.  Where in the world, time of year, weather etc.

London. Winter. We don’t go mad with central heating - we probably have it on for a few weeks each year - but we live in a terrace so it’s usually quite warm.  Guitar kept in case. But the guitar dried out. I reversed it using a wet sponge in a bag - replaced when dried out (usually after about 1 week). After a month or two the guitar was fine, so I probably caught it early.   But it is a warning. 

thomasross20

Eeerrrr.... if your instruments are insured, doesn't insurance cover the cost of accidental body damage....? 

ToneControl

thomasross20 said:

Just fyi hygrometer showing 60% with range 58-63%

I think that's the high end of normal for an acoustic
NB: look at the humidity outside over a day: in the summer it is often high from 4am-8am, so if you have all the windows open then, and do a check, be aware it will not cover the whole day

AFAIK 40%-60% cause no harm, but affect the action
tbh UK summers are unlikely to trouble any guitar

Below 30% is bad
below 25% can really damage an acoustic a lot
These humidities happen in non-leaky, non-rising-damp houses or shops that have heating on in the winter during cold dry spells (e.g. icy/snowy +  blue skies)

ToneControl

thomasross20 said:

Eeerrrr.... if your instruments are insured, doesn't insurance cover the cost of accidental body damage....? 

For dings, the repair cost would be less than the normal "excess", so you'd end up paying yourself