Humidi-pack Explosion
I have a customer who had a himidipack “fall out” of it’s holder and sat inside the guitar in his basement. When he pulled it back out he said the pack exploded. I have two parts to this question.
Part 1: has anyone had an issue with exploding gel packs? Any tips on clean up? All the joints that this has hit still seem connected and structually fine, but there are some sticky spots on the inside of the guitar.
Part 2: touch-up isn’t apart of this repair, i am just curious on your take on where to start if there was an ask from the customer. I would totally start with managing expectations, but with this black stuff on the inside that is causing the outside finish to fall off, do you think that could even be minimized? Would shooting retarder or thinned lacquer over the affected areas to re-meld the chipping lacquer be a sound repair?
Thank you for all of your comments!
I saw something similar at my shop like 6-7 years back, and I believe they told us they “reformulated” sometime in the last few years. Anyone know if that’s true? Was this an old pack?
Yes, they fixed it a long time ago. They reformulated the bag and the solution. Once the solution got dried out to a certain point the saline crystalized so hard it would puncture the membrane of the bag, and any leftover fluid would leak out.
We tied everything under the sun to fix those at Taylor, and yes, we tried on multiple occasions. Strip, refinish, sunburst, etc. It might look “better” at first, but the guitars always came back within a year as the solution just kept creeping through the wood. We gave up and just started replacing bodies. (Humidipak pays for the new body) I just had them pay for a new body for a Collings guitar about a year ago. That’s a saline solution, and once it gets impregnated in the wood it’s there forever…