A word of warning about humidity...

bbycrts


This was exactly where my brain went. It's not a matter of how much water is in the air, but how available that water is to affect the integrity of my uke, isn't it? A low relative humidity would indicate to me that the dryness of the air, for lack of a better term, would be tending to pull more moisture out of the objects around it, and with a wooden instrument that's not a good thing.

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I can theoretically see high humidity being as much a problem as low (although, at 5700 ft altitude and average RH at 20%, high RH is not a consideration here). I agree with the OP that observing the luthier's original atmospheric conditions should be ideal for preserving his works.
Builders used to use 12% RH kiln dried wood as a standard for home construction at least around here, in the desert.
Frankly, I'm afraid to consider a solid wood instrument even in my "music" room since my humidifier has been on all day, every day since November and the room rarely gets above 35% RH except at night. Occasionally, I even think about taking a vacation for a week or two. Without accompaniment.

Criminal, I know.

When I first got into luthiery, the question of moisture content in the wood and the Relative humidty were some of the first things I learned. Moisture content of the wood must be stable and in the 6% range. If you build in an environment where the RH is at a constant of 42-50%, measured on a high quality hygrometer, and the wood you are using is aged and at a constant 6% moisture percentage and the temperature is between 58-72 degrees, you should not have much trouble with your instruments even when they do experience sometimes drastic whether changes and humidity changes as long as those changes are not too lengthy. Right now in my part of the world, the day time outside temp has been about 22-30 degrees for a high and about 12-20 degrees for the low, and it has been this way for the last couple of weeks. When it gets this cold, the air is dry and the humidity gets sucked out of all the wood. The solution is to put it back into the air the water the wood needs so I can keep working. I am running one, sometimes two, cool mist humidifiers in my shop night and day to meet this need. My shop is well insulated and I have a excellent heat source so keeping things right is not difficult. Plan ahead.

No matter where you live, if you try to keep reasonable levels of RH and temperature (and I realize this can be extremely difficult), your instruments should be OK.

I just got this new humidifier from a company called Ufox, which is popular in Finland. It's not as loud as previous humidifiers (emitting no noise) and it's not the cool steam kind. It seems to be a slow burner, but overnight the RH has risen from 70 degrees at 16% RH, to 70 degrees at 30% RH. I hope I can get it so that at least a few of the ukes can be on the wall, but even if I can't, my skin thanks me anyway.

I've spent lots of money in the past on those cool mist type humidifiers, since that was all the shops had, and the ones here generally last a year before they start sounding like motorboats. This one, seems to be doing well, we'll see.

I live in a compound with set low utility rates - basically, my air conditioner/heating is free. I leave water sitting in pots all over the house and I keep a special closet with water pots for whenever I have to leave my house for a week or more.

I did notice at high heat and high humidity, I had a naked Fluke seem to get water (and salt) logged. I am close to a sea with high salt content so, I rarely will take out the uke because that salt doesn't seem to do any good.

What don't people talk about salt content in the air? Any luthiers have to deal with this?

Live in the same place where the ukes are built...or in a similar climate...problem solved! I guess moving to Phoenix or Pike's Peak is out of the question for me...otherwise crakety crack crack...or worse... submerge ukulele! <KIDDING>

SuzukHammer said:

I live in a compound with set low utility rates - basically, my air conditioner/heating is free. I leave water sitting in pots all over the house and I keep a special closet with water pots for whenever I have to leave my house for a week or more.

I did notice at high heat and high humidity, I had a naked Fluke seem to get water (and salt) logged. I am close to a sea with high salt content so, I rarely will take out the uke because that salt doesn't seem to do any good.

What don't people talk about salt content in the air? Any luthiers have to deal with this?

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Any Luthiers make a fully dunked ukulele where inside and outside is coated? just curious...I am thinking so much for bright sounding...

I just figured that my Kamaka Standard being such a fine instrument, it would bring it's own perfect humidity along with it here to it's new home in CA
Must be working. It's always 48 inside the hard case, which seems to run close with the RH in the room itself. Using a Herco inside the case brings it up to 56.

My Kala Concert inside of a gig bag has the same readings, while my acoustic 6 string comes in at 46 RH.

So is RH at 48 better than 56? Room temp is a fairly constant 68°

Trying to determine if I even need to bother with using the Hercos.

Okay that was interesting but hard. Since all our ukes were made in Hawaii (except the Dolphins) we'll just move to the islands. Much easier.