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Hi,
I have read some articles about air-dry, moisture content, EMC, etc.
Perhaps this is a silly question but, if I understood well, wood, even if very well dry, will tend to reach equilibrium with the surrounding environment. I wonder how luthiers did in the old days during the winter because where I live the RH is 60-70% inside the room now.
They didn’t have dehumidifiers at that time and only with very high temperatures one will bring back the wood MC to the same values of during the summer.
Hope it is clear, sorry for my bad English.
Antonio

Antonio,
You must live in a Mediteranian climate as I do. Wet winters and dry summers ! A lot of folks can't relate and have the opposite situation. You ask a good question. For me the way I control my house and my shop is with wood heat. A wood stove really keeps the humidity down. It works pretty well for my house but it is very small. For my shop not so well as it is big, very drafty and I am not there as much as I am at home. Still for my house even with the wood stove going constantly the RH is 60%. at 60° F this mourning. When it rains it is hard to get it much lower than that. Maybe in those days most houses were like the work shops of the time in terms of heat sources and how drafy they were. So the instruments where going from a environment very much like the one they would live in
It would be interesting to know but I can only speculate.
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Antonio welcome to the OLF my friend!

I am having the same problem, winter's can be too wet. One easy fix is to simply open the window and let controlled amounts of cold thus dry air mix with the one inside.

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I'm the opposite,very dry winters...Outside now the temp is in the-40s with the wind ....Humidity here in the basement now is 37% RH with the humidifier going full tilt....If you guys had to select a humidity level to build (other than the standard) ...Would you prefer to build in a low or high humidity?

Larry, I would rather build in low humidity versus high and here is why. Wood will generally not crack because more moisture is introduced into it. Backs don't flatten out, tops don't flatten out, fret ends don't stick out due to increased moisture (RH) in the material. Action changes regardless of increased or decreased moisture levels so that's something that would always have to be considered depending on the build environment versus the living environment.

It's easier on the wood to move from low RH to high RH.

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Thank you for all the answers.
I think I will have to wait until the the RH drops to below 50%.

Seja bem vindo ao forum Antonio.

When I lived in Brazil some builders worked with a lamp of about 200 watts over the workbench. It sure got hot on warm days though.

Muito obrigado Robbie.

I received an answer in another forum from a fellow that lives in Canada.
The conditions are opposed to mine and he says that he does not have any climate control in any of my buildings and so he assembles during the winter.
I guess in ancient times perhaps people would do part of the job during the rain season and would assemble during the dry season.
Just a guess...

Um abraço
Antonio

That's really interesting. Canada is a very large country, I live on the southwest corner of Canada. The winters here can fluctuate from +15*C down to -20*C from one or two days to the next, seriously! And the dry wind can really play havock on the RH level in the shop. The other day, I thought I put the water container back on my humidifier correctly, the next day I went into the shop to check on it and check the RH level. Well, my hygrometers told me that the RH had dropped 10% over night! What the heck happened? I checked my humidifier, it was still full! I did not seat it right on the base and no water was introduced into my shop. I fixed that and today, the RH is back up to 43%, right were I need it.

There is no way to tell really where the humidity level is going to go and I certainly wouldn't trust environment Canada to tell me when it will be reasonable to go ahead and glue up my guitars. Being able to control the environment is really important if one wants to do more than make moderate quality guitars or guitars which will be sold (even at discount) to others.

I certainly hope that other builder (who doesn't have RH control, living in Canada) has a good or several good hygrometers in order to tell what the RH level in his shop is. Again, depending on where he lives in Canada, the RH change from Winter to Summer can be from 20%-80%. That's not something to leave to chance as far as I'm concerned.

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"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

Here's a real time update on "building in the winter".

I just went out to the shop to have a check on things as it has warmed up from -8*c yesterday to about +2*C. The RH measured 49%. I turned down the humidifier. Sure wish I had an automatic humidifier but it doesn't take much effort to check and adjust. I've gotten to know my humidifier pretty well over the past 2 years (3rd winter).

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"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson