Just a quick heads up, people. The humidity is down to 58%, here, in Lucknow, North India, and should drop further in the coming week.
Till mid-December rolls around, it will remain cold and dry and thereafter, cold and wet!
Now is the perfect time to get all those glue jobs done – whether it is the bridge lifting, or the binding peeling, or the fretboard coming loose, or the heel separating from the body…
Just about any glue-up job that you can think of getting done on your acoustic guitar, now is the time to get it done. Why?
And here, allow me to go off on a tangent!
Instrument repair entails using a glue that is strong yet not brittle (like super glue), will not impede the instrument’s movement (like in case of an acoustic guitar’s top), can easily be taken off (with heat and moisture – like in case of pulling off a neck to reset the neck angle)…
And so, my dear friends, cynoacrylate glue (super glue) and epoxy will not do. Those who do, do so at the risk of losing the instrument they used it on, here, and being judged and condemned to hell on the day of judgement!!
Instead what is prescribed by ‘experts’ is animal protein glue (fish and hyde glue) and simple wood glue. These are water-soluble glues. So, anytime you go wrong, or have to correct something, all you need to do is apply a bit of heat and give it some moisture and some pressure, and it will come right off.
The operative word above, was ‘moisture’. When the humidity in the air is high – above 55% – the moisture won’t let the glue dry quickly, and in fact, sometimes never completely.
It is best then to avoid seasons of high humidity when putting these glues to work.
Getting back to point, there is a window of approximately a month – give or take a few days – in which to get your repairs done and get them done properly.
The next window (here, in this part of the world) won’t open up till mid-February!
Hurry up!!
