@kathreen-miller, yes excessive aridity and excessive humidity can damage wooden instruments. But those conditions are pretty rare. Where do you live? Is it excessively dry there? If not, you probably have nothing to worry about. If you experience seasonal dryness, it might affect you and your dulcimer, so you might get a humidifier for your house. Or you can do what my wife does and just put a big pot of water to boil.
There are relatively inexpensive devices that you can put in your instrument case. In fact, I have a guitar case that has a device embedded in the case itself. But to call it a "device" is misleading. It is a small sponge kept in a small case with little holes in the cap. You soak the sponge and then squeeze out the excess water so it won't drip, and you place it in the case. It keeps things sufficiently moist. And you refill it every few months.
Dulcimer cases don't come with build in homes for a moist sponge, but Herco sells a product that basically works the same way. There is a piece of porous clay inside a plastic container. You soak the clay and put it in the container. Put that inside your dulcimer case. The clay takes longer to dry out than the sponge does, but you still have to periodically soak it and start over.
There are fancier devices, including some that can both humidify when needed and dehumidify when needed, but unless you live in the desert or in a tropical rainforest, the expensive options are probably not needed. A professional cellist in my neighborhood whose cello is worth close to $20,000 does nothing to humidify her instrument. She thought it was weird that I even asked the question. I stopped worrying about my dulcimers when I learned that.
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Dusty T., Northern California
Site Moderator
As a musician, you have to keep one foot back in the past and one foot forward into the future.
-- Dizzy Gillespie
updated by @dusty: 08/11/26 05:47:19PM
