Winter Caring Tips for Your Guitar

If you teach guitar online, you’ll need to ensure you care for your beloved instrument properly as the mercury dips. You should also help your students take care of their guitar properly so that the instrument doesn’t become unplayable all of a sudden or worse, need expensive repairs. Here are some winter care tips for your guitar, which you could share with the students of your online group classes too.

1. Room humidity - check and regulate it

It’s ideal to use a room hygrometer in your personal practice space to know what that space’s humidity levels are. You could even invest in a room humidifier for your practice space as it would ensure your guitar doesn’t get adversely affected due to the dry winter air. Room humidifiers are low-maintenance tools as all you’ll simply need to refill the water once it gets emptied along with performing a little bit of residue cleanup.

2. Use a humidifier for your guitar case

It would be tough on your guitar to go through cycles of lower and higher humidity as the wood would shrink and swell time and again. That’s why you’ll need to maintain a specific humidity level, which can be achieved by placing humidity control packs in the guitar case after you’ve finished playing the instrument.

You could even use a case hygrometer that would display the temperature and let you know how dry or wet your guitar case tends to be. Though it’s rare in winter, if your guitar case’s humidity level becomes too high, you could use a tiny bag of silica gel to bring it down to the proper level.

3. DIY makeshift humidifier

It may happen that you’re away from home and have forgotten to carry your humidity control packs. No need to worry as you can create a makeshift humidifier easily. Soak a piece of sponge and squeeze it out completely. Put the wet sponge in a ziplock sandwich bag and seal its mouth. Using a pair of scissors or a knife, cut 2-3 tiny holes in the bag to help the moisture get released slowly. Place this bag inside your guitar case when you aren’t using the guitar. With this makeshift humidifier, you can prevent your guitar from becoming excessively dry. In case the sponge gets dry, simply make it wet again to get the desired humidifier effect.

Apart from these tips, make sure not to carry your guitar outside for long periods as extreme cold too can trigger guitar troubles and interfere with your music teaching sessions.