Highrise accommodation for guitars

[DarwinStrings]

Up till now I have been using a little box with a incandescent lamp to control humidity which has been fine in the dryer times but this time of year I don't like to use it as I can't fit my whole go bar deck in it. As I don't want to stop building in the wet season and I don't have much space I thought I would put the de-humidification box and the go bar deck together. I bought a Delongi that has a humidistat, shoved it in the bottom and put the go bar deck above that. I just started it up this arvo and so far so good, it gets up to about 40 Celsius in there which is not too far above the outside temp. So the method of operation is to get everything in there I need, turn it on till I am satisfied the wood is at EMC within the cabinet then pull all four sides off the top, do the glue and go bar bit then shut it up and turn it on again. I have a window in the bottom with a hole I can poke a stick through to set the thing or check the humidity on the units read out and will also add another hygrometer just to be on the safe side.

tower start.JPG (99.9 KiB) Viewed 10732 times

finished tower.JPG (74.81 KiB) Viewed 10732 times

Jim

[Tod Gilding]

Jim I think that the big question is how long to leave the wood in the controlled area before any cross grain gluing is commenced and then if the sides are removed ( To Glue ) how much time does it take for the wood in question to absorb an amount of moisture that could be detrimental.
I THINK that some species are more hygroscopic than others, so obviously the times would vary for each species.
This problem has been what keeps me from doing exactly as you have done
I know that nickusa has a similar set up, but a bit larger, so he may chime in with some wisdom

[DarwinStrings]

Usually glue sessions are short, far to brief for it to be a problem (max for me is about 30 mins), sure the very outside takes up a bit reasonably quickly but it takes time to penetrate so no worries there. It is easy enough to work out when the wood has reached EMC at the cabinet set RH, you can do it by weight. My old cabinet has shown me that it works well when I deal with up to around 65% RH (I know it works cause I see the results of cross joining). This one is just more convenient as I have more control over the RH inside than the old one and this one takes a full guitar if I ever need that. The main problem that concerns me is how long the Delongi will last in such a small box but it does have a two year warranty.

Jim

[Tod Gilding]

I Think that you have me convinced Jim, I might have a look again ....... Tomorrow

[kiwigeo]

Jim,

When youre not using that booth for glue ups you can wheel it down to Mindel beach and put on puppet shows for the kids

[Nick]

Jim,

When youre not using that booth for glue ups you can wheel it down to Mindel beach and put on puppet shows for the kids

Don't forget to take a string of sausages!
Nice solution to the problem Jim.

[nnickusa]

Hey Jim,

I made something similar, called my "poor man's dry room." I made a blackwood guitar with no dramas, but when I used it to work on a Rimu guitar, even with 10-15minutes of time with the front off the box, it turned inside out on me after removing the back from the go-bar.....

Now Rimu is no blackwood, so it probably took on more moisture. The box kept the interior at 40-45%Rh and returned it there in about 1/2 hour after closing up.

I've since built a small permanent dry room to ensure that the RH variable is eliminated....I have enough other problems building...

viewtopic.php?f=24&t=4228&hilit=poor+man%27s+dry+room

Now the box is used for timber storage, with a couple damp rid buckets in it....

[DarwinStrings]

Ha! I avoid Mindil beach like the plague nowadays, too many people and if I took a string of sausages and a box down there they would want to charge me a hundred bucks for a a food stall.

The Rimu story is a bit scary Nick, I reckon I will do some tests on a few different species to see how fast they take on moisture. Even a fan blowing across the wood can keep it a little dryer I have noticed or alternatively I could work out a way to keep the Delongi blowing its dry air across the work piece while the sides are off.

I have enough space out the back of the shed to build another room which I did consider but can't be bothered and also didn't want to be working in a closed box in the wet season up here cause I would most likely melt though if it was too bad I could de-humidify as well as air con it, I have a few air cons that we don't use but I also can't throw away cause they "might come in handy some day".

Jim

[DarwinStrings]

I have just braced up a back and top using this box in the most humid time of year. Take them out and they curl up a bit like they should, put them back in at 40% and they go back to matching the dishes so I can finally build any time of year.

Jim

[needsmorecowbel]

Nice One Jim! Gotta be happy with that. I'm stuck making leccys until I can sort out the humidity issue. Jealous...

Stu