18% Humidity, Gig Bag not enough

Lori

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I have been refilling my Oasis Humidifiers, and testing my humidity readings on my various cases with a digital meter. Currently, it is a dry 18% humidity with the temp at about 77 degrees in my apartment. The Oasis humidifiers are doing fine in the hard cases and styrofoam hard cases. But the gig bags are reading around 35%, even with the Oasis in there. I got better readings if I put the gig bag in a plastic bag. Some of my solid body ukes have had issues with sharp fret ends, and I think it is because they were in gig bags and the necks have dried out too much.

So, if you are in a super dry climate like what we have in Los Angeles today, you might want to either double up on the humidifiers, or add an exterior plastic bag for your gig bags.

–Lori
 
A room humidifier might do the trick too. That's what I use. Even with laundry drying, it's still 36% in the room, which means the cases and gig bags with humidifiers are just fine. I'd crank the humidifier more, it's just on low now, but we want to laundry to actually dry. :)
 
After housing our solid wood ukes in gig bags for years while living on the boat, we discovered when we moved to the desert that they needed hard cases with multiple humidifiers. Even though the house hovers around 20% with a couple of humidifiers going, the uke cases stay around 40% if we fill the humidifiers every week.

Fortunately, only 3 of our 8 ukes need that kind of care. But even on our solid bodied ukes the fretboards have shrunk from the dry climate here. I really miss the Virgin Islands. :sigh:
 
A room humidifier might do the trick too. That's what I use. Even with laundry drying, it's still 36% in the room, which means the cases and gig bags with humidifiers are just fine. I'd crank the humidifier more, it's just on low now, but we want to laundry to actually dry. :)

I would consider the room humidifiers, but I don't think my husband would like one. If the apartment has been closed up, and we come home, he always wants to open the windows. I think he thinks humid feels "stuffy". Also, our 1950's era apartment building is far from air tight, and without AC, we tend to have windows open all night most of the year.

–Lori
 
Wow 39* humidity in Cerritos. Big difference. What size ukes are having the problem?
 
Wow 39* humidity in Cerritos. Big difference. What size ukes are having the problem?
I have 3 solid wood ukes living in gig bags... 2 sopranos and a concert. The one with the sharp frets is a soprano in a very nice padded gig bag. It has an Oasis in it, and the case is close fitting. Los Angeles is a large area, but I am only about 4 miles from the ocean as the birds fly, and those dry winds can still cause really low humidity readings. There have been fire danger warnings all over Southern California over the last few days.

I just discovered a nice plastic zippered bag to put the soprano cases in. It was packaging that came with a new pillow I bought several months ago. The bag it came in was so nice, I hated to toss it out. The standard pillow size is perfect for bagging 2 sopranos in their gig bags.


–Lori
 
This thread gets me worried about humidity. I just bought a fairly nice uke... it's a solid top spruce. I'm planning on ordering a hard case and an oasis humidifier for the winter months... I'm wondering if that will be enough? I live in Michigan- land of crazy weather.
 
This thread gets me worried about humidity. I just bought a fairly nice uke... it's a solid top spruce. I'm planning on ordering a hard case and an oasis humidifier for the winter months... I'm wondering if that will be enough? I live in Michigan- land of crazy weather.

Like Lori said, get a humidity gauge (hygrometer) to put inside your case. Then you won't have to worry or wonder--you'll know!
 
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