building a humidor

Amy

Joined Nov 2003
2K Posts | 0+
Paradise CA
well, i need a bigger humidor now so i think im just going to build one. do hardware places cary spanish cedar? i know they have cedar but does it have to be spansih cedar? i could just make the box out of regular cedar and line it with spanish cedar from cigar boxes. theres a bunch of cigar shops around here, im sure i could scrounge up enough to do it. i might be forced to use some kind of metal/plastic seal for the lid, i dont think my wood working skills are enough to get a good seal. ive never done anything that requires that much precision.
 
Spanish cedar is readily available and will be even more so over in America as it grows all over central and south america. I think spanish cedar is used as it has a lovely fragrance of its own which your cigars take up.

My thoughts on building your own humidor are:

Firstly construct an outer shell from some nice decorative wood (cherry, mahogone etc).

Secondly construct an inner shell from spanish cedar. It shouldn't be too tricky to get it right but you will have to be very accurate with your measurements.

Fix your inner shell into your outer shell, then do exactly the same for the lid.

A friend of mine managed to get hold of a solid block of spanish cedar - he squared it up roughly, then 'scooped' the middle out, made a lid for it and now has this lovely looking rugged humidor!

Good luck with it!
 
holy crap, that would be really cool! i would leave it all rough and stuff too.
 
I know - it looks awesome and is very effective! If you can find a decent size block of wood it would work a treat. Bit like a Flintstones style humidor!! :lol:

Let me know how it goes!
 
Hmmmm guess we are thinking along the same lines. I was recently in Kauai and bought a bunch of Koa wood to use for a humidor. I am looking for some Spanish cedar. This weekend I will start the Koa fabrication. I choose Koa because I already have a koa humidor that was a gift from my mother in law. Co-incidently the place where I bought the Koa was the same place that sold her the humidor many years ago. They sell cut offs and such in their store, they also are on ebay. Ebay may be a source for wood also, check it out. I will build one simular to the one I have just bigger!
good luck
Paul
 
Spanish cedar should in fact be used as a liner only, so the advice to make the outer shell out of a nice decorative wood is good advice. Honduran Mahogany is a second choice for the lining. The reason Spanish cedar is used to line humidors is because of its resistance to cigar beetles and ability to maintain proper humidity levels.
 
i have no concrete plans at this point, but i have wanted to make a steel humidor for quite a while. obviously the inside would be cedar, but there are some very cool art deco humidors frome the 20s and 30s that are made with steel and silver, etc.
another thought...
to achieve a good seal, consider magnets. espicially if you use the above method, (inner shell dropped into the outer,) it would be a simple matter to cut a groove to accomidate a magnet each piece.
are you gonna build a desktop style humi, or a larger unit with drawers etc?
anyway, good luck, and post pics when youre done!
 
I'd use mahogany if possible for the outer box.
I have heard of the inner being made of Mahogany.
It has a good flavor for cigars, but 99.8% of all humidors are lined with spanish cedar. The regualr cedar is not good for cigars.
It will give them to strong of a flavor.
 
it will be a desktop style humidor, but larger than most. im thinking 2 x 1.5 feet and maybe 9 inches deep. that should hold about 150 cigars. might need to be bigger, maybe 2.5 x 2. i wonder if i could just use particle board to make the box, line the inside with spanish cedar and put some veneer on the outside. has less of a chance of warping that way. but particle board probly wouldnt make a very good edge to seal. oh well, it will be a couple months before i start.
 
actually it will be sitting on a shelf lol.
 
I would never consider a do it yourself humidor. It is like performing surgery on yourself. Your only chance is failure unless you are a cabinetmaker. 30 years ago, I did my own auto tuneups.
Points & plugs. Not today. Buy a humidor- don't try to build. Failure rate is very high.Humidor needs ability to burp.Hinges are key.
Particle board in my opinion should be outlawed. Moisture sensative- a failure unless in perfect conditions and is hard to use with normal jointery.
Malone
 
well thanks for the vote of confidence malone! its not always the end result that makes doing something worth it. sometimes the most valuable part of it is the experience of trying. a lot of times you can learn more from a failure than a victory.
 
I'm sure that malone was being conscientious in the fact that statistics on home-built humdor failure are indeed very high. The end result of having hundreds or thousands of cigars go for a long term without proper conditions could be extremely costly to the person suffering the consequences. By all means, go ahead with your project, but make sure you have a Plan B.

You'll need to monitor your finished project for proper temperature and humidity levels very closely. Make sure that Plan B will work for whatever number of cigars your home built humidor will hold. It's just a precaution, not trying to put a damper on the party and I'm sure malone wasn't either.
 
yea, i know he wasnt being a jerk. emotions dont come accross very well on a message board. if i cant get a good seal then i will have a nice nic nac box and i will just go with an ice chest like was discussed a while ago here. as long as the wood i use doesnt warp after i make it i am confident that i can get a proper seal if i just take my time.
 
I wouldn't worry too much about the seal. As I've said on several threads, I have four professionally made desk tops, and the two with the WORST seals are the best at keeping humidity. Just worry about the whole thing warping and "leaking." Those are really the two major concerns of home built humidors.
 
Well, ripped up and bandsawed all the koa, looks like there may be enough to build 3 humidors approx 8x12x7 Should hold about 35-50 cigars ea. Still on the lookout for Spanish Cedar. Hows everyone else doing?
 
I saw Spanish Cedar last night. She was really resistant to The Beatles, but like me, loved Elvis and The Four Tops. Then, about 3 a.m., just as she had appeared, I looked and she was gone. I walked out of the alley headed toward the south side of . . .