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Sedona AZ, any good luthiers/techs in the area? Also worried about the low humidity

DoubleBoogie

DoubleBoogie

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Sedona is a fantastic place! I love visiting there. You may not know it, but you will be living in a city that has arguably the best "Mexican" restaurant in the entire country. Go to the Elote Café. It will blow your mind! https://www.elotecafe.com/
 
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RocknRollShakeUp

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Desertdawg said:
Probably the most famous is "Ziggie's" where Duane Eddy traded a Les Paul Goldtop for a new 1957 Gretsch 6120 then went on to record a stack of huge instrumental hits with it.

With the increasing use of Craig's List and Ebay as well as the big box stores like Guitar Center the music store business everywhere is constantly changing. This list is probably as good as any.

https://www.yelp.com/search?cflt=guitarstores&find_loc=Phoenix,+AZ

Then, in Flagstaff there's Arizona Music Pro https://azmusicpro.com/ as well as "Pops" in Prescott. http://www.popsmusicstore.com/pops-home.html
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Sweet, thanks for the leads! Yeah online shopping has taken over. My last few guitars have been purchased online. I may want to trade a few in possibly and it is great to have access to a real store. I've had good luck with the guitars I've purchased on reverb and from wildwood but I miss going to a store and being smitten by a guitar and taking it home. It is so hard for stores these days to have a large stock of multiple brands of guitars. My local GC has, I think one or maybe two CS Gibsons, and no CS fenders I dont think. Mostly MIM and squiers, although I am guessing they do have some American standard or professional, or whatever they call them these days, Fenders.
 
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RocknRollShakeUp

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TcRoc said:
All I have for you is congrats on moving to Sedona.. that has been my plan for years. Couple more years and I'm there myself. where abouts in Sedona you moving too? West, Uptown , Village of Oak Creek?
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Thanks man. I'm pretty excited. I'll be in West Sedona. Good luck with your plans and let me know if you make it out there.
 
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RocknRollShakeUp

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Low humidity tips update:

My luthier in town here in Athens GA, Matt Eady, who is excellent btw, and does great refinishing as well, told me that it would not be unreasonable to let the guitars acclimate to humidity in the 30% range and when/if I get fret sprouts, to just get the frets filed down. I'll try to keep the guitar room in the high 30% range if I could. He says the fretboard moisture content is around 7% so if I keep the fretboard lightly treated with fretboard oil this should help seal the moisture in and protect the fretboard.

With Les Pauls, the fret tangs are supposedly undercut so hopefully they won't stress the binding too much, but I may see tiny vertical cracks in the binding at the fret ends.
 
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Henry1122

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Much obliged again for the extraordinary tips, i was considering humidifying an entire space to like 40% or if nothing else 35% and drape a couple on the divider, yet i guess it is smarter to simply keep them for the situation, humidified room or not
 
El Gringo

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RocknRollShakeUp said:
yeah no kidding!

well so for the clubs I figure it will be somewhat more humid in there due to everyone drinking and mouth breathing :hee

I have the opportunity to get into a few gigs that will be outside gigs though! it would be in the spring, so yeah, I'm just thinking of gigging my 2016 American Standard Strat and have an EJ strat as a backup or vice versa, and be prepared to adjust a truss rod at some point. With an empress para eq and pedals I could make those Strats sound like just about anything too.

I'm not planning on taking some of my more cherished guitars out, that's for sure. There is something to be said for having a few guitars that are great playing and great sounding but not too special, that could be used as gigging work horses!
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I would think the Fender necks would be able to withstand the difference in humidity from your home to the gig . I use2 Holmes humidifiers in my home and the Dampit for the Martin .
 
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RocknRollShakeUp

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Henry1122 said:
Much obliged again for the extraordinary tips, i was considering humidifying an entire space to like 40% or if nothing else 35% and drape a couple on the divider, yet i guess it is smarter to simply keep them for the situation, humidified room or not
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Good luck to you! I'll try to update the thread as I'm going though this process!
 
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RocknRollShakeUp

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El Gringo said:
I would think the Fender necks would be able to withstand the difference in humidity from your home to the gig . I use2 Holmes humidifiers in my home and the Dampit for the Martin .
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Yeah me too...I'm thinking Fenders with poly finishes and maple necks! Flogged Work Horse guitar technology! :hee :worm

I'll check out the Holmes.

I use the Air o Swiss, now called Boneco humidifiers, and they have worked well for me.
https://www.achooallergy.com/humidi...iss-boneco/air-o-swiss-s450-steam-humidifier/
 
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Desertdawg

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You gotta get off this humidity kick! It's never been below 30% in my house since this thread started and that's with the heating on. :eek:la
 
El Gringo

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RocknRollShakeUp said:
Yeah me too...I'm thinking Fenders with poly finishes and maple necks! Flogged Work Horse guitar technology! :hee :worm

I'll check out the Holmes.

I use the Air o Swiss, now called Boneco humidifiers, and they have worked well for me.
https://www.achooallergy.com/humidi...iss-boneco/air-o-swiss-s450-steam-humidifier/
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That's a most interesting hot water humidifier . I just checked there website and it looks very good . How long does a full tank of water run for ? This seems to be a non filter unit ?
 
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RocknRollShakeUp

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Desertdawg said:
You gotta get off this humidity kick! It's never been below 30% in my house since this thread started and that's with the heating on. :eek:la
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Hehe! I'm obsessed I tells you!

OK so I have a hygrometer that I think is giving me a spuriously low reading by about 5%. I bought a new one that is supposed to be within +/- 2% and it shows 35% when my old one shows 30%. I tried to test the new one by putting it outside and asking the inter google to tell me the local humidity, and I think the new one is closest to being correct.

So, if you only have one hygrometer, I rec. getting a second to have another data point set.

Anyway I have been running a humidifier and been keeping the humidity in the 33-39% range. I'm shooting for an average of 35% and letting my guitars acclimate to this. It has only been a few weeks but no fret sprout at this point. I'm feeling positive about the whole thing at this point.

Further research has validated to me the idea that guitars can easily acclimate to humidity to even the low 30% range, but what they don't like is RAPID changes in either humidity or temperature.
 
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RocknRollShakeUp

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El Gringo said:
That's a most interesting hot water humidifier . I just checked there website and it looks very good . How long does a full tank of water run for ? This seems to be a non filter unit ?
Click to expand...

Yeah that is the only one that I found to work for me long term.

I have two and have used them for I think 5 seasons now. Now granted when I was in GA I was only running them in the Winter months. Here I may have to run them much more and we'll see how they hold up to the increased use.

A full tank has lasted me 8 hours easy, and even like 12 hrs + if it is running at the lower level with intermittent automatic shutoffs. If you use the "auto" mode and you fill up the tank before hitting the sack it should last until morning.

It has an internal hygrometer but it is not super accurate. Compared to a new hygrometer I got it seems to run 4-5% lower readings. The other unit has also shown a discrepancy to the initial unit by about 4% or so. However this is not a problem as I set the unit for 35% - 45% depending on need, and then adjust the settings based on the readings of the stand alone hygrometer(s) that I have. For example in the last week since I finally set one up to humidify, in order to keep a level of 33-37% on my stand alone [more accurate] hygrometer unit, I set the humidifier on "auto" to maintain 35% but its own internal hygrometer usually only shows 30-32% when I keep it on that setting; this keeps the unit working at a low to moderate intensity setting. If I want to change the humidification level I set the "desired" humidity on the unit higher, or lower respectively, based on the results I'm getting using the third party stand alone hygrometer.

The unit produces steam by boiling the water in a steel boiling bowl and as such doesn't need filters, another huge plus. It also inherently keeps bacterial growth to a minimum since the water boils in order for steam to be produced. If you have hard water it will create mineral deposits in the bowl. This is mitigated by adding a replaceable fabric pad purchased separately that you put in there to collect most of the mineral production. If you have very soft water this will also mitigate the problem. I have two units so that when one collects too much mineral deposit, or it needs to be cleaned in general, I have another one to run. I change that mineral collecting pad each time I clean the unit. I usually clean it once a week or two weeks depending. We have a water softener filter at the new house and the boiling bowl has been kept remarkably free of deposits compared to my old house.

Cleaning is pretty easy though. You just pour some water in the boiling bowl and then sprinkle a pack of cleaning powder (it is citric acid if I remember right) and leave it for about 24hrs. Then you rinse it all out and maybe get a paper towel and clean the steel bowl. You can at that point also use a little bleach water to slosh around in there, and in the water tank, leaving the bleach water in there for 24 hrs. (or a few hours) to really disinfect it. I try to use bleach water every 2weeks to at least once a month.

They are pricey, but to me they have been totally worth it, and the only units that have actually worked long term, been relatively easy to clean, provided less of an issue regarding bacterial growth, and have no filters to worry about, and provided sustainable use over a long period of time.
 
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Desertdawg

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RocknRollShakeUp said:
Hehe! I'm obsessed I tells you!

OK so I have a hygrometer that I think is giving me a spuriously low reading by about 5%. I bought a new one that is supposed to be within +/- 2% and it shows 35% when my old one shows 30%. I tried to test the new one by putting it outside and asking the inter google to tell me the local humidity, and I think the new one is closest to being correct.

So, if you only have one hygrometer, I rec. getting a second to have another data point set.

Anyway I have been running a humidifier and been keeping the humidity in the 33-39% range. I'm shooting for an average of 35% and letting my guitars acclimate to this. It has only been a few weeks but no fret sprout at this point. I'm feeling positive about the whole thing at this point.

Further research has validated to me the idea that guitars can easily acclimate to humidity to even the low 30% range, but what they don't like is RAPID changes in either humidity or temperature.
Click to expand...




Sums it up perfectly. Well done!
 
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