Humidity and classical guitar

When building acoustic guitar humidity control of the working area is very important.. Guitar might be later moved to environment vhere humidity can vary from 10% to 80%. Most severe situation is if guitar is built in high humidity and later moved to very low humidity As a result of this there are many effects to the instrument:

1. Back and top will crack and back usually is loosing the curvature it originally had. In case back shrinks a lot, cross braces will push out from the sides and possibly broke the sides.

2, Shrinking fingerboard will have fret ends pushing out.

3. Neck usually bends too much forward causing high action of strings.


In case guitar is moved to higher humidity than work areas humidity problems are less dramatic:

1. Action of the strings may change and back curvature will be increased.

Liikanen guitars are built in humidity 40% - 45% RH. There have been very few problems related to humidity. We believe that building guitars in humidity a bit lower than humidity it will face later, will ensure there won't be big problems. Some shrinking of wood is inevitable during many years of guitar lifetime even it is stored in correct humidity.

In very dry environments, we recommend using a guitar humidifier.