I almost hate to bring this up for another round, but anyway…
I wanted to get a prettier “box” than the tupperware things I’m using to store my flutes in.
So since I needed another hygrometer anyway, I went to the tobaccanist. and checked out the humidors. I bought a simple but pretty wood box for a modest fee.
On taking it home, now find that the only way it serves to hold my flute is if I break down the headjoint and barrel, and that’s if I set everything in there at a slant.
Is that going to be o.k.? Or will my nice new box now be the home for my wooden whistles instead? (Otherwise, it looks nice and holds the flute perfectly with room for the hygrometer and the humidifier)
Some makers advise against dissassembling the headjoint
routinely. Say this invites grit into the tuning slide.
Can’t say that I’ve found this to be true, however. Best
I dont like the idea of taking the head and tuning slide apart all the time. The tolerances are so close that I wouldnt want to risk a dent or a scratch. I found my humidor on line at cheap humidors.com I think. I will try to find the web site later if you want. The one I got now holds about 3 flutes, 4 recorders a whistle and a couple of cigars. It was about 60 bucks, made of cheery and realy nice looking. And besides, what makes you think you will always have only one flute
By the way, Tom, I checked out the site, and do see a few acceptable boxes, but tell me, do you stack your flutes in the humidor? How?
Actually, I rearranged the humidor I bought yesterday, and figured out how to fit the headjoint-with-barrel in at an angle… It’s a bit more snug than I like it, but it works and I can at least keep the two parts together. I don’t like taking them apart, either
My two old 8 keys fit in the lift-out tray and the Dixon rosewood, being very light nestels on top of the recorders in the bottom. I wish I would have gotten a bigger one but who new
I am interested in getting a display case/humidor for our flute and two wooden whistles. Currently I need a box with at least a 14" inside dimention for the foot part of Renee’s flute. Any suggestions?
Also, what would be considered a humidity level to maintain for the wooden instruments?
I have a humidor problem, maybe someone here can help me.
I got a small humidor from cheaphumidors.com, and it worked fine for maybe a year. It kept the humidity fairly constant at 75%. Afte a while, though, it started to degrade, and now it barely holds 50%, and i keep constantly putting wet rags inside to help it a little, but with little results.
I thought my humidifier was dead, so i bought 2 new ones and stuck them in together with the old one, no change…
Well, 50% is still better than 20%, but wassup? Will i have to get all flutes out and re-season the humidor?
As long as you’re adapting cigar technology to flute storage, it might be worthwhile to use Climmax media. http://climmax.com/order.html. These are polymer beads that maintain a constant humidity of either 65% or 70%. I use the 70% version in my humidor, and my stogies are in fine shape. If I were storing a flute in there I’d probably opt for 65%.
Being a former cigar afficiando, I can tell you that a cheap humindor is unfortunately, just that. Ill-fitting joints from shoddy construction will render some humidors virtually worthless for humidifying. You might get lucky and find a few out of a batch that are decent, but they are the exception to the rule.
For cheap effective humidification, I’d reckon the ‘tupperdor’ is the best option. Unforunately it’s not as attractive, but a wooden humidor that looks good AND performs well isn’t cheap… :roll:
Hey glauber maybe your gauge is off. Have you calibrated it?
Mine, which is a little larger, 150 count cigar size, stays at a constant
70% though I do add a small spong in addition to the humidfier.
well, the cheapie needle hygrometer that came with it stays in close agreement with the cheapie digital hygrometer i bought from Radio Shack. I think the darn thing is leaking.
I used a “Tupperdor” once, but the humidity shot to over 100% (however that’s possible) and i got mildew. This was just using a moist sponge. I’m thinking of switching back to a Tupperdor, but using a hygrometer to keep the humidity from shooting up.
No matter what i do, i’d think any kind of humidor would have a hard time keeping with an outside RH of 23%. Most of the humidity would escape quickly when the thing is opened, right? Then the humidifiers would have to slowly bring the RH up again.
I think something like one of the Cigar Oasis products would be the only way to pump moisture into the storage area quickly enough. I haven’t tried one yet, i’m curious if anyone here has.
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.
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.
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 dont need no stinking guages" sorry I dont 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.
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.
