On 9/18/07, Anthony Hind <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > In the piano trade, we have the Dampp-chaser. This is a name-brand > > humidity control system designed for pianos > > I will make a search on this damp chaser, but it sounds more as > though it removes humidity, Here it is more a problem of increasing it. > > I imagine this thing will be rather expensive and perhaps large. Do > you have any details? >
There is a link off the Dampp-Chaser home page (which is dampp-chaser.com) to http://acousticsaver.com/ This is an oak cabinet with glass display windows and, apparently, a Dampp-Chaser built in. At $5500USD (with options in cabinet wood, whether they crate it or you pick it up uncrated and number of guitars it'll hold, that can rise another $1750!) I'd call that expensive! The AcousticSaver really is the paranoid's approach to displaying an instrument! Ideally, the humidistat will be tuned to the %rel humidity that acoustic guitar maker factories maintain, too. This may or may not be appropriate to lutes. If you have a glassed-cabinet you want to employ, I'm sure you could get something to control its humidity. A Dampp-Chaser for installation in a piano is priced according to the type of piano, upright or grand. The price is different for the two configurations, with the Grand version being more expensive. A piano technician who installs Dampp-chasers can very likely help you choose a custom system, since the individual modules are available to the technician as separate parts. But the point is that a Dampp-Chaser can be applied to a cabinet if you want an ideal resting place for your lute, and the cabinet can have windows like the AcousticSaver does. (And probably won't clash with your other furniture and may not even cost an arm _and_ a leg!) There's a cost-of-installation link on the Dampp-chaser home page. As for increasing humidity, the system is exceedingly good at doing this, in a controlled manner. The humidifier is a warm-element web-type, and can wick a half-gallon reservoir dry in a week when first installed (and the piano is very thirsty!). The humidifier pads need to be replaced every 6 months, and normally engender a $10-15 adder to the price of a semi-annual tuning. (Of course, you don't need your lutes or cabinet tuned by a professional piano technician 8^) There is also an additive (normal humidifier additives are actually corrosive and shouldn't be used on instruments anyway!) which comes in small bottles and lasts a long time, at a half-capfull per reservoir refill. You can get humidify-only or dehumidify-only systems, but to be honest, I'd go whole-hog, simply because, if you're humidify only and the humidity in the enclosure gets too high, there's no way to get it down again without just venting the cabinet and exposing the instruments to very low humidity until it gets back up again to too much. In short, it's going to regulate humidity in the box, not just raise it. (just raising humidity is what the snake did, anyway.) I don't know if Dampp-Chaser is available over seas...ok, the site has links to overseas dealers. Of course, none of this is a _good_ solution on the case-level. The best you can do there is to have a humidity meter in the case, and try to balance between a humidifier (snake or stone) and opening the case to let humidity out and dry air in. Or, if it's too humid, take the snake/stone out! ray To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
