flood damaged guitar repairs?

jasonmaher

A friend of mine was hit bad with the floods and his guitars got soaked. Does anyone have advice on what he could do to safely dry them out without damaging them.
We're looking at 2 fender USA strats, a Gibson les Paul and a Martin acoustic.
Thanks in advance.
J.

CianRyan

Let them dry out naturally and very slowly would be my guess.

whubee

dehumidifier maybe?
my floor got flooded before, i got one from argos for around the 100 mark.
not really sufficient for drying a house out, but it did gather about a litre in a day.

instruments may bend over natural drying-out time, this maybe could speed it up - but im no expert.

feylya

Take the guitars apart compeltely. Dry out each of the parts completely including all springs and screws. Do not put the wood near a heat source like a radiator - that'll encourage cracking. Hang the bodies and necks if possible so they're not lying in any water that may come from them. Relieve any tension on the truss rods. Use lots of paper towels for drying. Get some silica gels packets (like you'd see in shoe boxes) and place those inside the acoustic - these should help with the drying.

You may lose the pickups and electronics in the guitars depending on the flooding (and what was in the water), you may lose more or less.

punchdrunk

put the pickups/electrics/trem into large bowls of dry uncooked rice it will soak up the moisture

geetar

certainly rice for the electronics.

id say he should take the neck off the strats and dry the neck joint.

its the only part of a strat that has no finish on it.