I’m hoping someone here can explain something that I haven’t been able to find a satisfying answer to - why don’t traditional acoustic guitars crack? I mean obviously sometimes they do, but it seems to me like that should happen all the time. For anyone unfamiliar, the front (top) and backs of wood acoustic guitars have their grain direction running parallel to the neck. And inside, there is bracing. That bracing runs perpendicular to the grain of the top, and the bracing is typically glued to the top. Gluing perpendicular grain is generally considered a huge problem when it’s an item of furniture and it would be reasonable to expect an object constructed like that to tear itself apart in a few years as humidity fluctuations do their thing. But guitars usually don’t do that and I don’t understand why.

  • bluGill@fedia.io
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    3 days ago

    Every music store sells humidifiers because it is well known that if you don’t keep your acoustic wood instruments (not just guitars, violins, harps, pianos…) at a very consistent humidity year round they will crack. If you go looking for antique musical instruments you will see a lot of them with cracks. The ones that are not cracked are the ones where the owners have cared about humidity and temperature.