humidify or not?

ukemonster · Oct 4, 2009

Hi new uke friends

i have quick question about humidifiers.

Do i realy need one? for my beat up mahalo in it's soft case?
or do i only need one when i get a sweet uke and a hard case?

I have seen the uke minutes on how to make a pez one, just wondering if i should make one or not.

Cheers

nukulele0 · Oct 4, 2009

For your mahalo you probably don't need a humidifier. They are mainly used for instruments made of solid wood, yours is laminite so its not really necessary, but by all means if you want to go ahead it won't hurt the uke either

UkuLeLesReggAe · Oct 4, 2009

always good to have one anyways.

just realized u r from australia? which part by the way? and Australia gets really hot, especially now since its starting to warm up. I would recommend one.

Brewerpaul · Oct 4, 2009

Just from personal experience with other instruments (I'm new to Uke), I'd say the humidification thing is overrated. I live in upstate NY where summers can be very humid and winters in a heated house are desert-dry. I have a Guild guitar that I've owned since the 60's, a nice wood mandolin, a decent old violin and lots of other wooden instruments that I've never humidified and have NEVER had a single crack or ungluing problem. That's my experience-- your results may vary.

keithy351 · Oct 4, 2009

UkuLeLesReggAe said:
always good to have one anyways.

just realized u r from australia? which part by the way? and Australia gets really hot, especially now since its starting to warm up. I would recommend one.

if your in sydney wouldnt you be needing a de-humidifer, im moving back to wollongong from West aus, here the humidity sits at 55-60% all year but when i was in wollongong humidity was really high, what do you use cause i will have my kanilea with me so i gotta know what to use?

RevWill · Oct 4, 2009

For a beat-up Mahalo? No, you don't really need it. Except in the most extreme cases, humidification is only needed with solid wood instruments.

ukuleG · Oct 4, 2009

I'm thinking i should do something about humidity but i don't own any solid instruments yet and just checked the humidity in my town do i need a dehumidifier?

.

http://www.letsbookhotel.com/en/uk/bournemouth/weather.aspx

Matt Clara · Oct 4, 2009

ukuleG said:
I'm thinking i should do something about humidity but i don't own any solid instruments yet and just checked the humidity in my town do i need a dehumidifier? .

http://www.letsbookhotel.com/en/uk/bournemouth/weather.aspx

It's only a minor pain in the ass to use a humidifier, so why not use one? I have a beat up, five year old, Ko'Aloha second run concert ukulele, and I humidify it (just started to, anyway, but then, I just got it, too). On the other hand, a friend of mine here in Michigan--where winters are painfully dry--has owned guitars since the mid fifties, and says he's never worried about it, and never had a problem. I, however, don't want to be the chump who ends up screwed because he didn't take the basic advice, so I'm gonna take care of that for now.

franulele · Oct 4, 2009

BrewerPaul, consider yourself lucky! Not sure where you are in NY, but I've actually had instruments crack in Vermont.

ukemonster · Oct 4, 2009

keithy351 said:
if your in sydney wouldnt you be needing a de-humidifer, im moving back to wollongong from West aus, here the humidity sits at 55-60% all year but when i was in wollongong humidity was really high, what do you use cause i will have my kanilea with me so i gotta know what to use?

thanks for the feedback people

maybe you have a point Mr Keithy maybe i will need a de-humidifyer, and what the hell would that be.

by the way iwil be home in the gong in a few weeks. BEERS and UKES?

cheers everyone

retrozombi · Oct 4, 2009

After years of neglect, my guitar had cracked in several places. I had it patched up and plan to use humidifiers from now on.

DeG · Oct 4, 2009

I picked up a bunch of these, they were about $6.00 USD at Wal-Mart, and put one in each case.

This website sells them for $11.95USD: http://www.ambientweather.com/sp91551.html.

I've only had them a few weeks, but it seems like the humidity is staying right around 50% +/- 5% on it's own. I expect that I will have to resume adding water to the humidifiers once winter gets here though.

pithaya9 · Oct 4, 2009

Thanks for the tip DeG, think I'll g to Walmart today. I have an Oasis but thay are to expensive to put in all my cases.

Thanks

DeG · Oct 4, 2009

I just found them at Wal-mart.com also, $6.47 is the exact price:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=10671021&findingMethod=rr

ukemonster · Oct 5, 2009

DeG said:
I picked up a bunch of these, they were about $6.00 USD at Wal-Mart, and put one in each case.

This website sells them for $11.95USD: http://www.ambientweather.com/sp91551.html.

I've only had them a few weeks, but it seems like the humidity is staying right around 50% +/- 5% on it's own. I expect that I will have to resume adding water to the humidifiers once winter gets here though.

So 50% is the level you want in your case?

UkéDan · Oct 5, 2009

ukemonster said:
So 50% is the level you want in your case?

Yes. 50% +/- 10 or so

ukuleG · Oct 5, 2009

just bought myself a cheapy humidity/temp monitor thingy i just know I'm gonna become obsessed with room temperature now.

keithy351 · Oct 5, 2009

ukemonster said:
thanks for the feedback people

maybe you have a point Mr Keithy maybe i will need a de-humidifyer, and what the hell would that be.

by the way iwil be home in the gong in a few weeks. BEERS and UKES?

cheers everyone

gotta finish uni here movin back at crissy but definetly few beers and ukes down the pub, north gong i reckon, organise a local meetup maybe a meet half way between gong and sydney so everyone can come. So any response on if we would need a de-humidifer, gaby from musiccitycairns sells them for $30, ment to be used if the humidity reaches over the 65% mark which i does i think, best to check out what the humidity is locally from a weather site,cause im sure in the gong in summer the humidity sits at around the 70%+ mark and if thats right need a de-humidifier, or even call a local music store and ask them what the recommend for keeeping solid instraments safe ie humidifier or de-humidifier

Matt Clara · Oct 5, 2009

keithy351 said:
gotta finish uni here movin back at crissy but definetly few beers and ukes down the pub, north gong i reckon, organise a local meetup maybe a meet half way between gong and sydney so everyone can come. So any response on if we would need a de-humidifer, gaby from musiccitycairns sells them for $30, ment to be used if the humidity reaches over the 65% mark which i does i think, best to check out what the humidity is locally from a weather site,cause im sure in the gong in summer the humidity sits at around the 70%+ mark and if thats right need a de-humidifier, or even call a local music store and ask them what the recommend for keeeping solid instraments safe ie humidifier or de-humidifier

Yeah, I have a friend in Thailand where humidity is through the roof. He says he can't keep a guitar strung, 'cause the necks inevitably warp as a result.

kailua · Oct 5, 2009

In 1964 I bought a Martin Soprano solid mahogany. It spent two years in Hawaii, about fifteen years in northern California (two years of which were in unheated storage), ten years in Arizona, fifteen years in southern Texas, and two years in Missouri WITHOUT humidification. The result is no damage whatsoever. Ignorance is bliss. The last nine months I've been using humidifiers for all my ukes. Hope they don't crack.

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