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I hope this is an appropriate quesiton for this forum.

Winter weather is affecting my classical practice routine. My guitar is at house ambient, and the neck sucks the heat out of my left hand. I use a rice filled muff style hand warmer intended to be mircowaved, then hands plunged in. It works great, but I need multiple rounds until the neck warms up enough not to freeze up my hand to an arthritic state.

It's not practical to heat up my house enough, so I got the idea of just warming up the guitar itself. Question is, how do I warm it 10-20 degrees F as quickly as possible without damaging it? A heating pad under the case, with guitar and in-case humidifiers in place, would be my best guess. But I thought I would ask the forum. And at what rate ?

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

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If thee meddle with dragon kin, thou will become crunchy and good with ketchup.

You might try a electric heating pad like you'd get at a pharmacy, it should provide a nice gentle heat. Turn it on low and drape it across the back side of the neck until it's war. As far as rate goes, I would think slower is better.
I haven't tried this myself and I'm a little hesitant to suggest it because of that, but just monitor the neck closely for any adverse effects and I think you'll be fine warming it a touch.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

How about just heating the room where you practice.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Or use the easiest room (to heat) for practice.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

I don't like the idea of cyclically heating and cooling any wooden instrument especially when some of the most common glues soften or release with heat. I know that you are talking maybe no more than 100F but it is the on again, off again nature of occasionally heating that bothers me the very most. The neck materials, fret board, neck wood, etc have differential expansion rates as well and this can stress the glue joints. It can also affect the set-up....

My suggestion is to humidify one room well and constantly. This will make things seem warmer to us human bags of mostly water... and be like letting your instrument live at the spa. 45 - 50% and no higher should do the trick. With humidification both you and the instrument benefit.

Wear a glove. Get a thin, snug fitting cotton glove, such as you might wear if you were an appraiser handling rare objects. Cut off the glove fingers and probably also the part of the gloves that the fingers attach to. Probably leave the glove thumb on. I think you will find that this keeps your hand warm enough and does not interfere with playing. Let us know if it helps.

How about one of those small infra red heaters? Just aim it at your hand while playing.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

...Or just relocate to Sydney. Kill two birds with one stone...

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

lolz - I do thank you all for your input, but unfortunately, none of these solutions are optimal in my current situation. I'm not looking for a heating solution as much as limits for a safe rate of warming.

My thinking is that the guitar already cycles through a range of house ambient temperatures, albeit a much slower rate than I am proposing. The range of temperature will increase, but not beyond warmer spring weather. I'm really talking about 55F to 68F. At 64F ambient my hands just can't stay warm enough to play well. At 68F, I'm good.

I suppose the best answer is to set up my practice space in a small room and just heat the room a few hours ahead of time. I may even be able to practice at 72F without angering the fossil fuel police with whom I cohabitate.

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If thee meddle with dragon kin, thou will become crunchy and good with ketchup.

I like to play early in the morning when the house is about 52 F. Here's what works for me: An electric oil-filled heater. It sits on the floor and is about two feet tall, looking vaguely like an old steam radiator. Unlike a radiant heater, it can never get the guitar too hot anywhere. At 600 watts it costs less than a dime an hour. I sit so that my left hand and guitar neck are over the heater. Truth be told, I park the heater right over the grate where (very little) heat comes from the furnace. I drink coffee or hot water from a huge cup so that I can wrap my hands around it for a quick warm up. The coffee sits on a saucer that sits nicely on the oil filled heater.
Any guitar should be able to take going between 55 and 80 degrees at any speed with no bad effects. Radiant heaters can heat small areas much hotter than that and in my opinion should not be used.