Guitar Maintenance Question

[Lonk]

Question for those that know about proper guitar maintenance.

I recently moved to a new place and something started happening to my guitars. The neck on my guitars do not like the new place. My strat was giving me really bad buzz around the 5-7 fret. The neck on my Majesty (7-string Neck-thru guitar I should mention) started warping, to the point that I was not getting any audible notes from the 6 fret down, and from fret 7-10 it was buzzing. I should mention this guitar was sitting in its case for about 3 months. I took it out to play recently and that's when I noticed the neck warp.

I tried to adjust the truss rod in both guitars but that did not help. I took them to a guitar tech and I already got my strat back and it sounds great(ish) again. I'm still waiting on my Majesty.

My question is, how could I prevent this. I never had this issue at my previous place, where I was doing setups myself. The temperature at the new place is usually anywhere between 70-76 (during the summer at least) since I don't get a lot of direct sunlight, so I don't think it is a matter of temperature. I don't know how the winter will be but I assume it will get pretty cold inside the apartment.

Should I keep the guitar's in their cases with a humidifier?

[Stadler]

Humidity will make a difference as well.  My new house is MUCH more humid than the old, and I've noticed a difference in the tuning of my guitars.   

[Lonk]

Thanks Stadler,

Yeah, I know humidity could be the issue, which is why I asked about using a humidifier. I moved the guitars to a more "controlled" area in the apartment. We will see what happens.

[Lax]

if it's really terrible, then you could put them back in their cases with eventually some humidity control stuff (drying bag like when new)

[FreezingPoint]

Definitely sounds like a humidity issue to me as well, though it must be pretty bad if you got enough back bow to make the first six frets of the Majesty completely unplayable. A truss adjustment and setup should cure the issue, providing you get the humidity stable. I've found that the Majestys take a bit of work in terms of getting a setup just right and are a bit temperamental, but that could just be the two I've had experience with.

I try and keep the room my guitars are stored in between 30-50% humidity. In the winter around here that can be a challenge and I'm filling up the humidifier every couple of days, but its worth it, as in extreme cases I can feel the fret ends out of the side of the neck. I've also bought a multitude of humidity gauges to find one that is accurate.

Keep in mind that truss adjustments take some time to settle. I generally make smaller changes and then check the next day once it settles in, and make changes from there if needed.

What I do to quickly check and adjust the neck relief is to place a capo or press down on the first fret of the lowest string, then hold the 12th or 14th fret down with my other hand and tap at the 7th fret. There should be just a little bit of gap there. If you have a capo on 1 you can get out some feeler gauges and measure. I forget right now what I generally keep the relief to. I think .006, but that's a wild guess without being at home and checking my equipment. When doing this procedure you can also look down the neck (from the headstock down) and there should be just a little bit of relief around 7-9.

[Lonk]

Definitely sounds like a humidity issue to me as well, though it must be pretty bad if you got enough back bow to make the first six frets of the Majesty completely unplayable. A truss adjustment and setup should cure the issue, providing you get the humidity stable. I've found that the Majestys take a bit of work in terms of getting a setup just right and are a bit temperamental, but that could just be the two I've had experience with.

I try and keep the room my guitars are stored in between 30-50% humidity. In the winter around here that can be a challenge and I'm filling up the humidifier every couple of days, but its worth it, as in extreme cases I can feel the fret ends out of the side of the neck. I've also bought a multitude of humidity gauges to find one that is accurate.

Keep in mind that truss adjustments take some time to settle. I generally make smaller changes and then check the next day once it settles in, and make changes from there if needed.

What I do to quickly check and adjust the neck relief is to place a capo or press down on the first fret of the lowest string, then hold the 12th or 14th fret down with my other hand and tap at the 7th fret. There should be just a little bit of gap there. If you have a capo on 1 you can get out some feeler gauges and measure. I forget right now what I generally keep the relief to. I think .006, but that's a wild guess without being at home and checking my equipment. When doing this procedure you can also look down the neck (from the headstock down) and there should be just a little bit of relief around 7-9.

Thank you for that. I've done Truss rod adjustments before but I never knew it could take that long to adjust. I'll certainly keep that in mind in the future. In terms of humidity, If I had to guess, the room where I keep the guitars is above 50%, but no more than 65% (depending on outside humidity), which is probably what caused the issued.

I got my majesty back and it sounds great again. I spent some time talking to the guitar tech and he gave me some tips as well since majesty necks are a bit sensitive.

[Skeever]

Leaving them in their cases seems to help a good bit.