Thank you for the information. If it's just cosmetic, I won't worry about it too much. All I really care about is that I can still play, and that it won't happen again.
I'm really at a loss as to how to keep it humidified enough. The humidity in my house is around 30%, and it's at 50% in the case. I wonder if it's because I drive it to lessons and etc, and I do bring it out for at least an hour every night to practice. Anyway, thanks again On Mon, May 14, 2012 at 12:47 AM, William Samson <[email protected]> wrote: > The first thing to say is that small cracks are usually harmless - > The trouble is that the best way to repair them and stop them > spreading involves taking the soundboard off, which is best left to a > maker. > > If the crack is unlikely to spread ( - and if there's a curved J-bar > under the soundboard it shouldn't go beyond that - ) a cosmetic repair > would be a straightforward job for any maker - gluing in a thin, > matching spline to fill it, for example. > > It's hard to be sure the action is rising if you don't have any earlier > measurements of it. I'd suggest measuring the height of the first > string above the fingerboard (not above a fret) at the position of the > 8th fret. If this is no more than 4mm the action should be OK - but > you should still note your measurement and the date for comparison with > later measurements. Any higher than 4mm starts to make playing tough > and a maker should be consulted. There are straighforward ways of > fixing a slightly high action - differently graded frets for example, > along with a lower nut, which isn't a big job - but in extreme cases > the lute will need more major work to adjust it. > > I've found that the most common cause of cracking is extreme changes in > humidity. If the humidity is stable, the wood shouldn't shrink and > crack. As you probably know, Thomas Mace's answer to this was to keep > his lute in a bed. > > Good luck with this. > > Bill > From: Adam Olsen <[email protected]> > To: Lute List <[email protected]> > Sent: Monday, 14 May 2012, 4:46 > Subject: [LUTE] Lute cracking > I have a 13 course lute that was built in New Zealand, and is now in > SLC, Utah. > There's definitely a crack forming just to the right of the heart > decoration at the bottom of the soundboard (toward the treble side). > I've got the dampit in there which I wet every other day (this is > what the maker recommended, there is a hole where the strap peg > usually goes, and a dampit fits), and then > two oasis case humidifers in the case. I have a hydrometer that reads > around 50 all the time, or sometimes just below. > The action seems to be getting a bit higher. Is it possible it's > cracking from too much humidity? > Is there something I can do to stop it? I'm worried about it getting > worse. > I just got this lute in February after waiting since 2007 to get one. > I'm really kind of bummed out about this. Any help would be greatly > appreciated. > To get on or off this list see list information at > [1]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > > -- > > References > > 1. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > --
