Dehumidification / Dry Room .

[ozwood]

Hi All ,

I'll seek your collective wisdom for my problem , I have a workshop that's about 6 X 5.4 m And I use all of it , I have been agonising about my choices in Regards to humidity control , I have toyed with the Idea of a Dry room of about 1.8 x 1.8 m , that takes a far chunk out of my shed and is the biggest I can make it without making the rest of the shed unworkable , or I can loose the rollerdoor , install a sliding glass door which will seal up the whole workshop , and I will only run the Dehumidifier when I have a Build going. the shed is lined and insulated , Timber floor up of the ground . also any recomendation in regards to Dehumidifiers , brand , size and model ? .


Cheers in advance ,

[graham mcdonald]

If you live on the east coast building guitars without a dry room is flirting with disaster. They don't have to be big. The first one I made in Sydney many years ago was effectively twice the size of the go-bar deck, about 1.2m wide and 1.8m deep with a door on the narrow side opposite the deck. The go-bar deck was part of the structure of the room, which sat in the corner of the workshop so I only had to build the two long wall frames and the door frame and only sheeted one of the long walls. There was just enough room to store the bits I was working on at the time as well as the next couple of instruments worth and to glue up braces and the like on the go-bar fixture, with the dehumidifier on the floor under the deck. Of course seal the room as effectively as you can.

I don't think there is a huge choice of available de-humidifiers, they all just condense moisture out of the space they sit in with a basic refrigerator coil and it drops into a bucket underneath or to a hose that could run outside the dry-room into a bucket or a drain. One with a RH% control would be beter than one without. You really have to keep them running pretty continuously to maintain the correct 40-45% humidity in the wood and the storage/gluing environment. The recent discussion of RH suggests that a 4-5 day time at 40-45% RH is necessary before any gluing. If you were going to try to control the environment of the whole shed, you should perhaps think about a reverse cycle air-con unit and there should be some way to control that so it only kicks in when the RH is too high (or maybe low).

cheers

graham

[woodrat]

Hi Paul, You saw my dry room when you came up. It really is an essential part of my building now as the weather no longer comes into play. As I mentioned I am going to extend mine another 1.5 x 1.2 to get extra storage and another go bar deck in the controlled environment. Trevor Gore mentioned that about 3 x 3 metres is about the minimum but I have found that smaller is ok but with multiple instruments in progress I see what he means. Also I have found that having machines on mobile bases helps to get you a bit of extra space as they are not fixed to the spot as it were and can be quickly brought back into position for use.

Cheers

John

[ozziebluesman]

G'day Paul,

Living in Townsville humidity is an big issue especially in the wet season. I usually structure my builds so that the projects I am working on are at closed box before the wet season begins and use the box to maintain a dry environment for my build projects. I too have a small 7m x 4m workshop and room is a premium. My workshop is completly sealed and airconditioned.

Here is a picture of my dry box.


It is big enough for two guitar projects while in their moulds. Also the box will accomidate a weissenborn in its mould. About 200mm from the bottom of the box I have a shelf to keep the guitars away from a light globe, heat source that is positioned in the bottom of the box. If I had my time again I would position the globe at the end of the box. The 100 watt globe is wired to a dim switch so I can control the amount of light produced in the box. A small computer fan is positioned at the top of the box and the idea there was to suck out the hot air that has risen inside the box. Anyway, most of the hot air rising in my workshop is me The fan can be switched on or off and I have a Stew Mac hydrometer in the front of the box so I can keep an eye on the humidity levels inside the box. I find in the wet season when it is 95% humidity outside the box the fan does help to keep a steady 50% inside the box. In the dry season I can maintain 40% humidity levels easy. At the front of the box the clear panel at the botton left there is a small hole to create a draft and where the fan is positioned, there is another exhaust hole for the hot air to escape. I also have some humidity beads in some plastic containers sitting in the bottom of the box to aid the drying process. Usually I need to run the light in the box for half a day every few days to maintain the correct humidity levels and the beads do their job and hold that level nicely.

My proceedure is when I'm not working on a project it stays in the box and if the outside humidity is high I use the aircon and bring down the room humidity levels. When finished working on the project for the day it goes back in the box.

When I am at closed box stage I usually run the aircon for a whole weekend where I brace and close the box in one session.

I do like Grahams idea of building a closed in area in the corner of the workshop so the go bar deck can fit in as well makes good sense.

Cheers

Alan

[Tod Gilding]

Alan, I always worry about someone that has a workshop that tidy

[ozwood]

Hi All ,

Thanks for your Input , I know Trevor recommends 3x3 but I just can't fit that in it's nearly 30% of my shed , My shed is lined and insulated , sorta too big to be dehumidified and kinda too small for a Dry room, If I make one I'll make it out of 50mm freezer Panel, just means trashing half the shed and starting again , My 1500 x 1600 Island bench gone , 1.8 meters of storage shelving gone .

Maybe I'll seal the shed up , Buy 2 dehumidifiers and see how that works, failing that I'll have to build a dry room .

I liked John's room , it was about the right size I thought . But I get Trevors point about being too small also , I once Visited Gerards Factory , I think he's was Only about 2m x 2.5m seem to do the Trick.

Given me some food for thought.

Cheers,

[ozwood]

After some consideration , and taking into account the collective wisdom of a the Forum , I decided on a Dry room , the Biggest I could make it was 2.4 X 1.7 Meters which considering my Whole workshop is only 5.5 X 6.0 is a far chunk of workshop, I decide for the sake of speed , cost and Insulation to Go with foam sandwhich panel aluminium/styro/aluminiun , comes painted is easy to cut and install , I went to the Local home improvement place who eher more than happy to do me a deal on some orphan/ dented panels , and the associated c section to make the dors and hold the whole lot tegether I installed the whole thing in about six hours , including laying an el cheapo laminate floor with a vapour barrier underneath , the knock on effect was that apart from losing a fair chunk of my workshop , my bench was now too big and in the wrong spot , so I decided on a whole of workshop Re hash, which was a mission , but I'm pleased I did it . fisrt I installed the dry room complete with adjustable go bar deck /gluing bench/ clamp storage , the dry room also became home to my Humble W.A.S stash .the room is fitted with a Hygrometer/ controller that incorparates a 10 amp relay , to swith the Dehumidifier on and of at the desired levels , I have not hooked it up yet as I monitoring how well the inbuilt sensor works , which seems to be hovering around 44 - 46 % so I may not need to use it for control .
I also decided to redisign my Workbench , Getting out my Thicknesser and drum sander has always been an ordeal , as has attactching it to the dust extractor, so I fitted the bench with two slide out shelves with two storage drawers underneath at the other end of the bench ist the dust seperator bin that catches the bulk of the dust and large chips , connected to the dust extractor motor with the collection bag and filter to be Installed outside connecter via pipe , so once the dust leaves the workshop it leaves for good , even the really fine stuff .
The local Joinery is really generous , and gives me a call when they are having a clean up , so this year I scored some 1800 X 2400 cover sheets , a heap of doors , which wre all sliced up to make various cupboards and storage , including my setup bench . Good to recycle I say . anyt way there are some Pic's .

[jeffhigh]

Looks great Paul, should not use much power to run

[ozwood]

After some consideration , and taking into account the collective wisdom of a the Forum , I decided on a dry room , the biggest I could make it was 2.4 X 1.7 meters which considering my whole workshop is only 5.5 X 6.0 is a far chunk of workshop, I decide for the sake of speed , cost and insulation to go with foam sandwhich panel = aluminium/styro/aluminiun , comes painted is easy to cut and install , I went to the local home improvement place who were more than happy to do me a deal on some orphan/ dented panels , and the associated c section to make the dors and hold the whole lot tegether I installed the whole thing in about six hours , including laying an el cheapo laminate floor with a vapour barrier underneath , the knock on effect was that apart from losing a fair chunk of my workshop , my bench was now too big and in the wrong spot , so I decided on a whole of workshop Re hash, which was a mission , but I'm pleased I did it . fisrt I installed the dry room complete with adjustable go bar deck /gluing bench/ clamp storage , the dry room also became home to my humble W.A.S stash .the room is fitted with a Hygrometer/ controller that incorparates a 10 amp relay , to switch the Dehumidifier on and off at the desired levels , I have not hooked it up yet as I monitoring how well the inbuilt sensor works , which seems to be hovering around 44 - 46 % so I may not need to use it for control .
I also decided to redisign my workbench , Getting out my Thicknesser and drum sander has always been an ordeal , as has attactching it to the dust extractor, so I fitted the bench with two slide out shelves with two storage drawers underneath at the other end of the bench ist the dust seperator bin that catches the bulk of the dust and large chips , connected to the dust extractor motor with the collection bag and filter to be Installed outside connecter via pipe , so once the dust leaves the workshop it leaves for good , even the really fine stuff .
The local Joinery is really generous , and gives me a call when they are having a clean up , so this year I scored some 1800 X 2400 cover sheets , a heap of doors , which wre all sliced up to make various cupboards and storage , including my setup bench . Good to recycle I say . anyway there are some Pic's .

[ozwood]

OOP's must have hit the go button by mistake before i was finnished. Maybe Bob or one of the Mods can delete the first one and just leave the second one.

Cheers,

[Kim]

Good work Paul,

I store tops and any working project in the RH controlled area but leave the backs racked out in the main shop so they can move with changes in RH. There is a difference between dry wood and "seasoned" wood, but soft woods like spruce are not so effected as they are less dense and in most cases, should have little in built tensions due their straightness of grain.

Backs however are very often figured or have waney grain making them attractive. But of course this has them far more likely to present internal tensions. They are also far more dense so their cycle of reaction to extremes of RH is much slower than that of soft woods so as they make their way toward equilibrium with an ambiance of higher moisture, chances are conditions will then change before they ever actually get there. This leaves them moving back and forth somewhere between the two extremes of soft wood.

The problem is however that with greater density comes much greater power and in built tension therefore has greater potential to be destructive once it has been restricted by bracings across the grain. So its important to let 'new wood', that is any fresh sawn wood that has been 'dried', to then become acclimatised to the expected swings of RH in 'your' area. I regard this process as true 'seasoned' of the wood. The idea is that as time passes and the wood is allowed to take in and give up moisture from and to the air, that smaller but more powerful movement with changes in RH will decrease making the wood more stable. But you do need to keep everything well stickers so it remains flat throughout the process. Here's how I store mine.



I won't say that doing this will 'eliminate' all unwanted movement, but it does appear to reduce the problem somewhat by making the wood more stable in time. The point is that I feel this would probably not work so well if the wood was stored in a controlled environment where it pretty much just sat there doing nothing. Of course when you are to build, then you would pre select the required back and sides moving them into the controlled area some weeks before.

Cheers

Kim

[ozwood]

Thanks Kim,

I'll take that advice onboard and tell my boss I need another shelf on the workshop for my W.A.S , is she argues I'll tell her Kim said I need it.

Cheers,

[Kim]

Indeed tell her that Kim is an attractive woman whose been making suggestions on the forum about what you should do with your hard wood and the very last thing you'll need to worry about is the location of a new shelf

[ozwood]

[Kim]

Sorry mate...just fun'in with ya...I'm really not 'that' attractive...

[kiwigeo]

Sorry mate...just fun'in with ya...I'm really not 'that' attractive...

[kiwigeo]

Naaaaaaaaaah...its New Years Day.

[Kim]

I can assure you all that I'm not a woman either..just came back from a walk and dip down the beach to find the gas instantaneous hot water system has blow a diaphragm... so no hot water until we get the required bits on Tuesday...despite the cold water, with a 3 day growth of the holiday season I needed a shave so manned up with soap, a blunt disposable, and a Layton Hewitt CUMMMOOOOONNNN!!! to get the job done quick with hard'n'fast drags of the dull and dirty...noth'in even remotely girlie about that mate let me tell ya...most came out by the roots.

Here's what I used to finish the job once the handle of the razor snapped off from pushing too hard....



Yeah it hurt, but it was worth it cause what's left of my whiskers won't have the gutz to grow back again in a hurry so I should be right for a shave now for at least the next month or so..CUMMMOOOOOONNNN!!!



Cheers

Kim