Tonewood Storage

[ozziebluesman]

At present my tonewood stash is stickered and stored on shelves in the woodwork room and all my tonewood was bought dry and ready to use. I have a music teaching business that I have been operating at a studio above the local music store for the past eight years. Unfortunately the premises has been sold and I will have to find somewhere else to carry on my business. The woodwork shop was established in our garage as a backup to run my business out of if this situation ever arose. I have not been able to find a suitable room to run my business so it will have to be home for the present time.

Sorry for the long winded introduction!

My question to the forum is will using the aircon in my workshop on a regular basis be harmful to the wood stash? I don't use the aircon very often just on the odd occasion to establish a dry environment in the shop if I need to close the box or do important gluing jobs. During in the wet season the outside environment will be 75% humidity plus for two months of the year and using the aircon to bring down the temperature to 25% the humidity is reduced to about 60% humidity. So the wood stash will be subjected to swings of 60% to 75% plus humidity.

I would be interested in your thoughts.

Cheers

Alan

[nnickusa]

Alan, it sounds to me that you're not going to be doing much different than you already are for your timbers. I've read a few places that some blokes swear by keeping at a low RH all the time, others are happy for it to be exposed to swings in RH, and only stabilise it before working on it...

Mine is out in the ambient all the time, which down here a=can go from 80-90%RH to 25-30%Rh day to day. Doesn't seem to hurt mine. Also, remember that all the timbers you have have been sent to you. Usually, in hot as uncontrolled trucks and vans, aetc. I reckon as long as you acclimate the timbers before the closing the box stage, you'd be right...

Sorry, I know I'm not experienced as others, but take it for what it's worth.....

[kiwigeo]

My thoughts.

Wild humidity swings are never good for stored wood. Small swings should be ok as long as the wood is properly stickered or even better stored in clamping arrangements as used by Kim and others. What would be of concern to me would be moving the wood from a high humidity storage environment to the dry box while bracing up.

For the record, I store my wood in my workshop and humidity is kept at 40-50% so its never subject to large humidity swings.

[steve roberts]

Hi Alan
I agree with Martin 100%.
I also store all my timber at 40 to 50 % RH
Regards Steve

[Nick Payne]

I remember reading somewhere that the old Spanish luthiers would store their timber in the ceiling to expose it to a wider range of temperature and humidity...

[kiwigeo]

I remember reading somewhere that the old Spanish luthiers would store their timber in the ceiling to expose it to a wider range of temperature and humidity...

Sounds like a myth to me. They more likely stored it in their ceiling because that was the only space they had to store stuff

[Allen]

I've got so much bloody wood that there is no way possible to keep it all in a controlled environment. It's been dried and then I put it on edge in racks to save space in my garage. The swings in humidity....and there are some wild ones in Cairns are just part and parcel to what the wood will have to live with once it's turned into an instrument.

What is important is to bring wood that you are planning to build with into that controlled environment a couple of weeks or longer if you can prior to using it (if it's in thin veneers more or less ready to use for an instrument). It will very quickly loose any excess moisture and stabilise, being ready to brace up with out any problems. If you don't believe this, then take a top and just lay it on a work bench. Watch in minute how the top will curl with differences in RH.

When braced it needs to be in that controlled environment until the box is closed up. After that normal care with wild and fast humidity and temperature swings should be observed.

[Jokidding]

If you are really worried about your tonewood stash just donate it to me and I will look after it.
Jo.

[ozziebluesman]

Thanks to you all for your thoughts.

I think the stash should be fine and I do use a drying box to stabllise wood before and during a build. All the spruce and cedar tops are stored and stickered in a press like what Kim uses so all should be good. We have big swings in humidity here in Townsville too so the stash will be used to taking in and giving off moisture.

Cheers

Alan

[Taffy Evans]

Hi Alan, I do the same as Allen. My stash sits out in the machine shop stickered if new, but goes into the building shop some time before being worked on, which is a more controlled environment during the building process. I just pulled out some EIR stored this way for the last 30 years or so, its still perfect, but nearly all gone.

[DaveW]

Hi guys
for what its worth Ive had some Spanish Cedar I was planning on building a Flamenco guitar from that I have had stored (I use the term loosely ) for the past 18 years ....it was to be my second build ...well its now 18 years on and I am just about to string up my second build,an EIR and Spruce OM,I wont go into why, the point I was trying to relate is that this Cedar has followed me around to a several different abodes ,left in leaking sheds ,carports etc in the same cardboard box from LMI with some other bits and pieces,ie kerfing ,bindings neckwood ,tools etc and when I checked it ,other than a small water stain at one end of a side its perfect, just 18 years older,I come from Perth where it can get pretty hot but I guess the humidity is pretty stable other than a few days a year,so I guess thats what saved it .
Anyway I dont have the room to store it in a humidity controlled environment so I guess all my woods will either just have to survive .
it seems usually with me the more care I take the more chance there is for damage