Welcome to Fall / Keeping Your Instruments Safe

Fall can be such a wonderful time of year! Families gather to pick pumpkins, children prepare their costumes for Halloween, adults begin the task of raking leaves - you get the picture. As our household climate controls switch over from “cool” to “heat” modes, it’s important to remember that your guitar might need some attention as well.

I’ve stressed the importance of proper storage & home care for stringed instruments for almost as long as I’ve operated my own bench. Taking better care of your acoustic and electric instruments at home can reduce the risk of requiring major repairs in the near future. Here area few tips to help you along your fall/winter prepping:

Take a moment and really observe where your instruments are being stored when not being played. Are they tucked away in their cases in a basement? Are they hanging on wall-mounts in your finished studio? Are they underneath a pile of clothes in the corner of your teenager’s room? Laundry woes aside, location matters greatly when trying to provide an adequate living space for your instruments.

The absolute best place for your guitars when not being played is in a closed hardshell case resting against an interior wall in an insulated room. Wall hangers are wonderful for showing off your stringed-things, but these should not be used all the time. During the day or while you are near your instruments it is perfectly OK to rest your guitars on a wall hanger or to display for company to see, but when not being used all instruments should be stored in their cases to reduce unnecessary exposure to varying humidity conditions.

Which brings us to the topic of humidity control. You might say something like, “I have a dehumidifier in my house running and everything seems fine,” or, “The hydrometer in my living room reads 45% so everything should be fine, right?”. Not to sound like a broken record, but the absolute best place for your instruments is in a hardshell case. When battling humidity, the smaller the “room” the better humidity can be controlled. Stop thinking about your cases as, well, cases and think of them as rooms for your instruments. You can control the internal conditions of the case much more efficiently than a standard bedroom.

But just keeping your guitars in the cases might not be enough protection from the banes of our changing weather conditions. For electric guitars, a closed case stored in a climate controlled room is adequate enough. But for acoustic instruments, the addition of an in-case humidification system would be highly recommended. These systems range anywhere from $10 to $50, and even the simplest of the options would be better than nothing at all. Our shop recommends using the D’Addario Humidipak System for all acoustic instruments.

Acoustic guitars are built with thinly milled pieces of wood that are already subject to high levels of tension in regular conditions. But when exposed to great shifts in temperature and humidity combined, acoustic guitars can warp or (even worse) crack sometimes causing permanent, if not irreversible, damage. All instruments with wooden necks and adjustable truss rods are subject to shifting due to temperature and humidity changes - soi both electric and acoustic guitars are susceptible to these seasonal issues.

While we’ve touched on how to properly care for your guitars. Next post we’ll discuss the warning signs that signal intervention or repair might be imminent for your guitars.