Massive Humidity change

[boogie8008]

I will be moving from Charleston South Carolina to Denver Colorado in a few weeks and am wondering what effect the humidity change will have on my bass and what steps i need to take to help it out. The humidity here in Charleston is very high (it can get up into the 90% range) and the humidity in Colorado is very low. My bass has a maple neck which is straight as an arrow now and plays great. I want to do whatever I can to maintain the setup and not spend to much time tweaking it when I get there. What do I need to do?

If this thread should be in the basses section please feel free to move it.

[Thornton Davis]

Once you've moved let your bass acclimatize in its case for a day and then open the case (leaving your bass in it) for another day to allow it to acclimatize.

You'll probably need to make a make a truss rod adjustment. I would expect that because of the lack of humidity in the Colorado area, the neck will "tighten up", and if it does you'll have to add some relief to the truss rod. Make small adjustments to the truss rod and then let the bass sit for 3-4 hrs outside its case to see how the rod adjustments are affecting the neck. Once you've got it to the point that you're comfortable with, you're going to be good to go.

TD

[Pilgrim]

I live north of Denver - I have my basses in one room and I run a humidifier to hold the level fairly constant. The initial change will be the most significant. But I moved here from central Texas (humid) and had no problem with my '63 P.

You can also buy the small humidifiers that go in a hard case and provide humidity...but over time, you'll want to lat that bass adjust to a lower humidity level. I agree that a small adjustment may be needed, but I think it will take a lot longer than one day for the bass to adjust. Wood doesn't give up its moisture that quickly, so I'd wait a couple of weeks before tweaking if possible.

[Turnaround]

Tweak, tweak, tweak until things settle down. That's likely to be a full year or more. But there's no harm in making many small adjustments. Better than making one big one.

[Ric5]

Welcome to Denver ... First of all your basses will be fine. Don't worry about summer. Keep your basses in the basement in the summer and the humidity should be between 30% and 50%. But in the winter you will need some humidifiers in your house and you need to keep them running all winter and don't let the humidity drop below 20%. Right now the humidity in my basemant is 43%.

It gets dry in Denver but not as dry as Las Vegas or Pheonix AZ.

In the first month you will probably have to make a small adjustment to tighten the truss rods.

The Denver climate is easier on my basses then the Michigan climate I came from.

[Pilgrim]

Ric5 has it right - summer is humid enough, no problem. It's winters that get dry.

[boogie8008]

thanks for the help. I guess I will be back in a few months if there are problems (hope not).