Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi all,

For reasons not really worth mentioning here, I will have to leave my apartment based workshop. I have the hypothesis of renting a new space here in town or the crazy idea of building a wooden shed in a place in the countryside that my mother-in-law was kind enough to offer me. As I know that some of you operate from these sort of premises, I wonder how easy it is to adapt a wooden shed for guitar building, mainly regarding keeping the place well insulated regarding humidity and heat. (We have hot summers here, think California)

Building it will cost me (both time and money)' but the idea of finally being able to make lots of dust without too much karma burden is rather tempting. Oh, and I would finally be able to listen to LOUD music!

Thanks in advance,
Miguel.


- edited for typo -

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

Used to have one.
Loved it.
Got 2 now! - Second for finishing, almost up and running.
But climate here in Scotland is a bit different....
Insulating and humidity, well. Hot or cold makes little difference, insulation material and vapour barriers.
Except you need cooling in hot countries, as opposed to heating here, and A/C would be to your advantage.
I'll leave that to someone with more expertise in similar conditions to yours.
Good luck!

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

I had speced out one of those Home Depot two story sheds before. It would have been cheaper to stick build one but none the less it would work. I was going to rest it on a concrete pad with a vapor barrier and spray foam insulate. I ended up buying a new house that had a barn on it that was very well made with power going to it and hardwood floors and cedar siding with a metal roof. It's up on concrete footers so I spray foamed the sub floor and ceiling and used pink bats for the walls and refinished the whole interior. It was more or less a shed but a very well built one. For heating and cooling I got a DIY mini split system and the thing works absolutely perfect and was super easy to install. With that and a dehumidifier I've been able to keep the shop space at 45-50RH with ease in very humid Virginia.

Strange choice for wallpaper perhaps?

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

It's easy to keep a shed or even larger building the correct humidity in most parts of California. I only need t run my dehumidifier 5 months out of the year. You can get a dehumidifier for a couple hundred at the big box stores. I have been getting them at garage sales for $20 bucks. If your mother in law is willing to give you a free place to work and you plan on staying married and your wife doesn't like bikers I would go that route. You need to save as much money in this business as you can.

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Michael F Smith
Goat Rock Ukulele
http://goatrockukulele.com