My experience with my new Altamira

GregO

Regarding the initial post: It sounds like the guitar was never touched. Humidity is no excuse for high frets or sharp fret ends. Your humid condition would actually straighten the neck thereby lowering the action. Coming from the west coast the truss rod should have been secure.

MichaelHorowitz

@GregO Our tech did a complete setup on William's guitar and had it playing beautifully here in the shop. However, as mentioned in the previous posts, the vagaries of cross country travel and the vastly different climate of NY in the summer vs Seattle resulted in the wood moving a bit. This is really common and something we see all the time shipping guitars all around the world. No matter how good a setup we do here, we can never predict precisely how a guitar will react once it reaches it's destination. Generally we see high humidity resulting in a raised top and higher action, but sometimes other things move as well and the action gets lower.

Gouch

Fwiw worth, a super light coat of lacquer on the entire guitar interior makes a huge difference in instrument stability. As a player and builder of acoustic instruments for 35+ years, while residing in Alaska and Wisconsin, I’m very familiar will the “extreme humidity swing tax” on instruments, and the havoc that can occur.

Besides my own builds, my (totally excellent) ALD Originalę has a lac’d interior. It’s a totally stable guitar.

Must note, my 1950 D28 *doesn’t* (as far as I can tell) have a sealed interior, and the guitar never goes out of tune or has action issues.

(Keeping a member of your fleet in a case at all times when you aren’t playing it, with a case humidifier, of course is basic best practice, wherever you are.)

Bones

Yeah I always seal my guitars with a coat of lacquer sanding sealer before I glue the back on.

vanmalmsteen

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/108565#Comment_108565

does lacquering the inside affect the tone of the instrument? I heard somewhere that, the inside of the original selmer guitars was lacquered?

Bones

Probably not much unless you put it on too thick. I think the idea is just a thin coat to seal the pores in the wood so that humidity doesn't go in and out of the wood so fast. Makes the guitar more stable to transitory changes in ambient humidity or lack thereof.