Fast temperature changes

[Lenny Buttitta Jr.]

Hello all,

I live in a house that is heated primarily with a wood stove. I have a thermometer / hygrometer that I keep in the case of my Martin D28. The humidity is fairly stable, but I was wondering about the heat fluctuations when I use the stove.

The room is fairly large, and I generally keep the guitar in it's case, about 25' away from the stove. The room can be as cold as 55~60 degrees at the start, and can jump to 80~85 degrees after the fire really gets going. I keep a kettle of water on top of the stove to help with dryness caused by the fire.

Humidity aside, should I be concerned with a 20 degree rise in temps on a daily basis?

[Paul Breen]

Shouldn't be a problem if you keep it away from the stove and leave it in the case while the temps are changing. The temperature will change much more slowly in the case.

Fast temperature changes can (might) cause finish checking, cracks that appear in the finish and not the wood. Cracks in the wood can happen from drops in humidity so be diligent with your humidification.

[Rob Mercure]

I don't know the year your D-28 was made or if there's have been any changes in construction but my D-25K (koa D-18) was made in 1979 and when I purchased it I was living with wood heat and then after three years lived without running water or electricity near the national forest (S.W. Virginia, near KY line) for three years - where the temperature literally changed from 20 degrees F to around 80 using an old non-airtight stove getting the mass of the cabin warm enough before I went to bed that the water I'd drawn from the well hopefully wouldn't be frozen in the morning (more often than I like to remember - nothing like heavy quilts and good sleeping bags). And since then I've probably lived with wood heat and/or variable temperature/humidity for at least 8 years with the only damage to my Martin being from my own clumsiness and pick abrasion of the pickguard/finish/table (I'm competing with Willy Nelson but since he's got several decades on me he's actually worn a hole through his top ).

Realistictly I think the greater danger is being in a closed car in the sun during any warm to hot sunny day (and this can easily be as early as April here in the Central Appalachians so watch out if you're in a warmer area). One strategy which was at one time popular but seems to have died for some reason is the folding shade on the windshield which makes more difference than anything else I've used other than parking in the shade of a tree or building (and since the earth revolves around the sun and spins on it's axis that shade can change). For many years I used an ugly cardboard one effectively and for the past ten years or so a plastic one that has an internal air space and is metalized on one side - blue on the other - which reflects light and really isn't any uglier than my truck.

Protecting your guitar away from home is probably more important than worrying about the stove.

Rob

[Ron Frazier]

I have had a old junk parlor guitar in my car all summer in the sun with no strings and the glue never gave up. The temperature was over the thumoters range and going around the second time.

I once brought a guitar that I built in side of a worm shop from outside . It was out there in my pickup canopy for hours and the temp was around 0 degrees.

I never let it set but opened the case and handed it to some one to play and I watched it crack all over the fount! I never did that again!!

The wood will move faster than the finish so the finish will crack!

Ron

[Russell Vance]

Yep, in Canada they have a saying 'that on a cold day you can hear the Goldtops crack' - referring to Les Paul Goldtops which have come out of a cold environment into a warm gig room and have just gone 'crack'. I had a customer do it to a new nitro finished 52 reissue clone - left it in his car overninght in a freezing Canberra winter with 10 degrees of windchill after a late nighter and next morn pulled it out of the case to clean it in his warm kitchen and that was , as they say "all she wrote".

[Len Biglin]

So did it look cool , like an old guitar?Or just ruined? Len

[Russell Vance]

Hi Len, It looked cool to me...unfortunately no so attractive to my customer ......strip and relacquer - the cracks were full length along the body starting at the edges of the Tele bridge plates where the screws stress the finish. This was not just crazing it was full depth monsters.......as I said, looked kinda used to me and not unusual for a thick nitro finished Tele but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. R.