| Author |
Subject |
JosephL
Registered
User
(12/31/00 12:49:50 pm)
Reply |
Winter
Dryness
What is an acceptable range of
humidity for a cello. I am concerned about how dry my house is and
am wondering if I need to add a humidifier to raise the humidity.
I am using damp-its in the cello, but don't know if this is
enough?
Any advise would be appreciated.
Thanks
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Cambiata
Registered User
(12/31/00 1:03:57 pm)
Reply |
Re:
Winter Dryness
Really, your best bet is to use a
home humidifier (it's healthier for you, as well as your cello). I
always try to keep the humidity level no lower than 50%. I've always
hated Dampits - always worried that they'd drip in the
instrument.
Good luck!
|
TerryM
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Registered User
(12/31/00 4:31:35 pm)
Reply |
Re:
Winter Dryness
I also use a home humidifier
(rotating drum-type) to keep the humidity up in my music room. My
piano is thankful for this as well. I can usually tell if the
humidity drops too low, as my cello pegs let loose. Keeping the
humdifier on also allows the room to feel more comfortable at a
lower temperature. When it gets so dry in winter, I don't think a
dampit is capable of keeping the enough humidity available for the
cello. My cello also sounds better when the humidity is kept at a
higher level.
Terry
|
phesketh
Registered User
(1/2/01 4:17:16 pm)
Reply |
Winter
Dryness
More than your cello appreciates it
..
Talk to a decent furniture manufacturer ... They say keep
the house at 40% humidity to help your furniture have a
longer
life (even the sofas where the wood is part of the
frame).
Not to mention it helps dry skin, exema (spelling
mistake) and
psoriasis.
Paula
|
cellochris99
Registered User
(1/10/01 7:07:43 am)
Reply |
dryness
I too have a dryness problem. It
stays around 38-percent humidity- hence the perpetually blasting
furnace. I've got the Stretto humidifier kit and use about 4 of
those little pouches spread throughout my case this time of year. I
used to keep 1 or 2 of those water pouches just in the little
accessory pocket in the scroll area of the case. Unfortunately, I
recently realized that the humidity from the pouches was staying in
that localized area of the case and wasn't humidifying the rest of
the case- the other %90 of the cello!
I've noticed that my
new divide and conquer method of placing humid packs in different
areas of the case seems to work pretty well, providing even humidity
throughout the case.
I have two questions, though:
They say
that sudden changes or fluctuations in humidity are very bad for the
instrument, but isn't that exactly what you're doing to it every
time you remove your cello from the humidified case to
practice?
Also, how long does it take the wood in the cello
to lose it's humidity once removed, and gain it's humidity once
stored?
Chris
|
Len
Thompson
Registered User
(1/12/01 4:51:07 pm)
Reply |
Allowing the wood to adjust!
I'm by no means an expert on this
subject, or even very knowledgable for that matter. But the comment
from Chris is something I also have thought about before. When you
keep your cello as close to ideal for humidity in it's case, and
then use it in different locations with various levels of humidity,
are you not subjecting it to extreme conditions? To alternate from
very dry, (which is normal for many places this time of year) to
moist storage, back and forth again and again seems to set the cello
up for the greatest possible movement of the wood. Would it not be
better to shoot for a more modest level of humidity, allowing the
cello to adjust for the season somewhat, without trying to keep it
at summer levels of humidity????
This is the long way of
explaining, but I think you know what I'm getting
at.
Len
|
Rich
Rodriguez
Registered User
(1/13/01 1:45:04 pm)
Reply |
Winter
Dryness
I just moved up north, and my cello
is really suffering. I've had the seams re-glued 4 times already.
Dampits don't seem to do anything, I just ordered the stretto system
and was wondering how well they have worked with some of you all.
What is the optimal humitifying accessory?
|
cellochris99
Registered User
(1/14/01 12:03:44 am)
Reply |
Some
information
I posed this same question to a fine
instrument specialist. He said that it's best to keep the room that
the cello will be played or stored the majority of the time,
humidified at 40-60%. Ideally around 55%.
He said you should buy
a room humidifier you can get at any department store. The Stretto
system, which I use in combination with the "air tight" Gewa case,
seems to keep humidity at right level with some TLC. I've found that
it's best to use 3 or 4 moist bags/cases spread throughout the case.
However, the case humidifying is really just intended for when your
Cello is being transported into different enviroments sort of a
portable "home" for your Cello when you're out in cracked skin land.
The case humidifiers are not intended to be the one-all end-all
cures in themselves.
As long you don't leave the Cello out
of the case in a dry climate for a ridiculous length of time, it
should be ok for the length of time a typical gig or rehearsal would
last. Just try and keep it in it's humidified case whenever possible
during breaks and intermissions.
They say that the Stretto
digital hygrometers are some of the most accurate humidity monitors,
but more $$$$ though.
Chris
|
JosephL
Registered
User
(1/14/01 11:59:46 am)
Reply |
Winter
Dryness
I've learned a great deal from
everyones contributions - Thanks
|
Andrew
Victor
Registered
User
(1/14/01 12:30:42 pm)
Reply |
Humidifier "wellness" tips
I lived in the California desert for
over 30 years and during almost all of that time I had
home-room-type drum or belt humidifiers running whenever the
evaporative cooling was not.
With this I never had any
dryness problems with my instruments - except when I left home with
them - and those problems were never worse than tightening bow hair
or gut strings - never an open seam (maybe one or two that I could
fix myself, but I don't know they were due to the dryness).
A
humidifier is an incubator for mold growth (even mosquitos if you're
real unlucky). They sell powders and liquids to suppress such
problems, but I found that putting a capful of liquid bleach (such
as Chlorox) into the humidifier water storage container about once a
week would keep such growth at bay for an entire season (it's the
same thing that keeps swimming pools safe). Then in Spring I would
wash the humidifier out and dry the parts in the sun to wait for the
next Winter. A single large (drum or belt-type) humidifer is
sufficient for a large house (at least up to about 3,000 sq. ft., if
you place it near the return air duct of the furnace system.
A correlary of humidifying the air in winter is also keeping
the temperature down (I recommend sweater temperatures [below 70°]
indoors in winter, and cooler at bedtime) it makes it toughter for
germs and easier on inner nose and throat surfaces - and makes it
easier to keep that humidity controlled - and it saves increasingly
on fuel costs.
Andy
|
Sopher
Registered User
(1/15/01 11:36:32 am)
Reply |
RE: how
long for wood to dry
I know that when you are having wood
flooring installed in your house, they like to have it set in your
house for a few days before they install it so that the moisture
content of the wood can adjust to the humidity of the house - I take
this to mean that it takes a significant time for the moisture to
change - and this is RAW, unfinished wood with no barrior to water
vapor. I would think that a cello which is varnished, at least on
the outside, would take at least as long or longer to adjust to a
change of humidity.
Based on this it would seem best to
provide optimimum humidity as a baseline and assume that relatively
short excursions to non-optimimum humidity environments would have a
minor impact.
Your mileage may vary!
Sopher
|
Len
Thompson
Registered User
(1/15/01 9:43:09 pm)
Reply |
Still
Wondering!
Sopher,
That's true enough about
wood flooring, but your cello is much thinner than wood flooring in
most areas, except for maybe the neck. So if wood that is 3/4 of an
inch thick can move enough to buckle and crack in the span of a few
days, I still wonder about the cello. My guess is the wood used to
build cello's is quite a bit drier than wood flooring to start with,
and it is still open to the atmosphere on the entire inside of the
instrument. The points everyone have made are well taken. I'm just
wondering how long it takes, and how much the cello's wood does move
when used in various conditions. For instance, I keep my cello in
it's case with dampit's when not in use, but I bet my house is not
more than 20% humidity, and the cello seems fine. However, the
dampit's only offer a slight increase in humidity. If I attempted to
keep the cello at 50%, and then used it in the house at 20%???
Everyone has told how they keep their setup, but I havn't heard
what's the best way. Let me give you one example. Take a warm
instrument (like a guitar with a hard type of finish)out in the
cold, or visa/versa, and the finish will crack and craze in
seconds,showing how fast the wood beneath the finish is accually
moving. I know that's hot and cold verses moist and dry, but it
seems like apples with apples, no?
Len
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