Humidor

glauber · Post by **glauber** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 2:33 pm

I think 50-60% would be good for flutes (i'm happy with 50%), but 70-75% is what cigar humidors are made for.

sturob · Post by **sturob** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 3:01 pm

I was wondering if that might be too high, in the long run; you take the flute out, and it sits in potentially very dry air. Then you blow 100% through it. . . hmm. Should the whole thing sit around at 75%?

I'm just now confronting the issue, having lived only in a very humid climate until now (Toronto). When I bought a hygrometer, I found that my apartment had a RH of 35%, so I got a humidifier, and now I keep the place at 50%.

I guess I worry about it now, but I don't know how wet things should stay.

Stuart

Dana · Post by **Dana** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 3:08 pm

I got myself a "wal-dor". (It's a large walmart plastic container with a lid that closes securely, but is not an airtight seal). The container is clear enough that it lets light in, which might help retard mold growth. I was keeping my flute at around 60-65% humidity, and decided that it kept my flute feeling and sounding too mushy, if that makes sense. I had two quitar humidifiers in there, and now have cut back to one.

Dana

Blackbeer · Post by **Blackbeer** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 3:30 pm

I think the subject of humidity is pretty subjective. Some people have had mold and mildew problems with higher humidity. I use 70% as my target knowing that guages can be wrong, "Guages; we don`t need no stinking guages" sorry I don`t know what happened there.
What I worry about is when I have one of my flutes out and play it for a couple of hours and then take a break leaving the flute standing up to drain. I always wounder if the extremly low humidity over here will catch up to me one of these days during a break. But I don`t worry that much about it. I do know wood likes to be moist, reitively speaking that is.
I would think anywhere between 50% and 70% would be fine. I have appsalutly no reason for saying that though. It has worked for me for the past 8 months.

Tom

sturob · Post by **sturob** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 3:43 pm

Maybe Brad can chime in, but I feel like he and I had a conversation recently about flute humidity, and he said that if his boxwood flute drops below 40% it goes out of round. I think he said 40%, could have been 45%.

It might not be necessary to keep flute humidity so high . . . but I guess we don't know fer sher.

Stuart

Loren · Post by **Loren** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 4:23 pm

I'd have to disagree with you Tom, I don't think the issue of RH % is subjective - my experience leads me to belive that flutes need to be kept within a certain range of humidity that has a correlation to what humidity the flute wood was seasoned to: For example, An Irish or English made flute is going to be much more likely to crack at 30% humidity than a flute made from wood that has been seasoned in most parts of the US.

I'd store instruments made in the US at around 55%-60% RH, and anything made in a high humidity climate at 65%-75%.

And yeah, Boxwood seems more finicky - I had (warping) problems with an English made boxwood instrument at anything below about 60%.

Loren

sturob · Post by **sturob** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 4:37 pm

I just found the correspondence I had from Brad; his English-made boxwood flute would go out of round at below 50% RH.

I think we're all somewhat off-base when it comes to comparing the climates of Ireland and the UK with North American climates. We completely discount the fact that in the winter, anything indoors in Ireland or London or Cape Hatteras will have very low humidity; nearly everyone lives with some kind of heating, and whole-house humidification systems aren't ubiquitous. The few homes I've been in in Britain had radiator heat, and that sucks the humidity out of the air. Are most workshops without climate control, or if they do have it, do they watch the humidity like hawks?

When I bought my first keyed flute, a Cotter, I remember that Eamonn looked up climate data for Houston and decided that he needed to keep my flute in the kitchen next to soups and boiling water, so that it would get used to the higher humidity we have. He figured, I think, that our high humidity coupled with a low need for heating would mean that the RH indoors for me would be a lot higher than his. (Note that I was in Houston at that time, not Toronto.)

I wonder if the problems folks seem to have with timber stems from bad seasoning. I mean, I know everyone wants an instrument right now, but doesn't it take years for the moisture in a piece of timber to equilibrate with the ambient conditions? Trees are pretty wet, you know. It wouldn't surprise me if it actually took months of sitting around, drilled out, for timber to dry enough for an instrument to be stable. Months or years.

What form do instrument makers keep their timber in? Billets? Drilled billets?

Stuart

andrew · Post by **andrew** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 4:48 pm

Mr Wilkes says that he has had some of the wood he is working on drilled out for 14 years .
He says that conservators look for a humidity of 55 %

Loren · Post by **Loren** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 5:19 pm

sturob wrote:I think we're all somewhat off-base when it comes to comparing the climates of Ireland and the UK with North American climates. We completely discount the fact that in the winter, anything indoors in Ireland or London or Cape Hatteras will have very low humidity; nearly everyone lives with some kind of heating, and whole-house humidification systems aren't ubiquitous. Stuart

Stuart,

You are assuming that most of these flute makers season their wood either indoors (rather than out in a separate shop or storage shed), and in the heated portion of the house (of course I am assuming the opposite, which is not necessarily correct either). I'm also not convinced that the heated areas will be so low in humidity - something more associated with central heat/air.....

I have also suggested on occasion that poor seasoning may be an issue, but I'd think that the likes of Cotter, Hamilton, Wilkes, and Murray would have sussed out the seasoning issues long ago.

Loren

Blackbeer · Post by **Blackbeer** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 5:20 pm

55% sounds good to me.
Loren you have a good point but realy wood never stops seasoning. When I was building wooden kayaks and sailboats and I was using cuered lumber I always let it climatize for at least a year so that I could work with it in the shop or out on the job with out it checking or swelling or shrinking. Now the boxwood issue kinda scares me seeing as though I have 3 boxwood flutes coming this week and I think the RH around here right now is 20% and I don`t think they will all fit in my humidor.

Tom

mat · Post by **mat** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 6:16 pm

Why dont you all just move to Europe?

feadog39 · Post by **feadog39** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 6:22 pm

sturob wrote:Why would you want humidity that high, meaning 75%? Shouldn't something closer to 50-60% be fine for timber flutes?

Do we actually know how much humidity we need?

Stuart

well, at least in part, the trick seems to be (based on a conversation I had with Patrick Olwell a few weeks back) to avoid extreme humidity shifts. Thus, storing your flute in a tupperare box at high humidity during the winter, for example, would be quite bad because when you pull it out then the wood is subject to drastic dehumidification. This is what i am surmising helped foster some lovely cracks that have appeared on my flute this season. So as a tentative answer to your question, stuart, would be that it depends at least in part on overall humidity in your climate. This also is what i take it accounts for why Olwell suggested what i thought to be a somewhat low humidification level of around 40%. In short, seems like more (humification) is not necessarily better.

I think there is also merit in taking into account what Loren says about where the flute was made/cured. A flute cured in Ireland would have different humidity needs than one cured in, say, west virginia. However, nowadays, i also consult an astrologer and palm reader to get things *exactly* right. Never can be too cautious, ya know...

Loren · Post by **Loren** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 6:32 pm

Blackbeer wrote:55% sounds good to me.
Loren you have a good point but realy wood never stops seasoning. Tom

Actually Tom, this is my point exactly. Wood will only stop gaining or losing moisture when left for a prolonged period at a given RH. So, if a maker leaves his wood (rough turned and bored) for a period of x months (until he/she is feels comfortable that the wood has seasoned {the humidity has equalized with the outside environment}) and then reams and finish turns the instrument in the same RH environment......well, from then on if that flute is going to maintain it's current dimensions (not gain or lose significantly more moisture) then it will need to be kept at an RH close to that which the maker seasoned the wood at in the first place. Make sense? This fits with what you are saying.

Loren

sturob · Post by **sturob** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 6:38 pm

Loren, I think your response was meant for me and not for Brad.

Radiant heat also dries out the air; just go into a room with radiators and bring your hygrometer. 10% wouldn't be uncommon. Central air is no different, you're just blowing a fan across something hot, rather than putting the hot thing in the middle of the room.

And I don't think that the problems are completely sussed out because I've heard of flutes by all those makers with cracks; was it from improper handling, or improper seasoning, or both?

Stuart

DCrom · Post by **DCrom** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 6:38 pm

You know, folks, this isn't too encouraging. Just when I thought that I'd probably end up buying the Casey Burns Folk Flute as my first "real" flute, this thread comes along and makes me start looking at the Dixon, Seery, and M & E again.

I am a bit puzzled at the worries about removing the flute from its properly-humidified case to play, though. Since 1) for most people, you're adding moisture, and 2) it's going to be going back inside the case when you're done. Given how long it takes to season the wood in the first place, how fast can it dry out when you're playing? Not an opinion here, but an honest question.