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Nov 28, 2008
December Edition of Vintage Guitar News and Views.
Keeping your guitars clean,yule be glad you did.For
this months edition of Vintage guitar news and views we turn our
attention to the maintenance and upkeep of our guitars ,both our
playing guitars and our investments , which in my opinion they all are
. Winter time is upon us ,dreary days and cloudy skies ,all but most of
our outdoor jam sessions have ceased to exist, the perfect time for
tuning up our guitars as well as general upkeep and cleaning, the
following is standard but sometime items we either forget or put off to
do, so get a space cleared out and enjoy a day with all your guitars,
yule be glad ya did.The first thing I do is oil all my latches on my
guitar cases and inspect the handles for signs of weakness or need of
repair, I take my guitar out and place her on a nice padded work
station while I clean the outside of each case with a 20 per cent mix
of warm water and mean green cleaner , I use a stiff brush and dip it
into my cleaner and give the outside of my cases a good cleaning ,
followed by a good wipe dry with a clean towel. Now while I sit my case
open to dry either in my heated guitar room or place them in the sun if
it shining to air dry while I move on to my guitars.
I loosen and
remove the strings from my personnel players guitars and usually have
no string on my guitars I offer to clients until I ship them. I inspect
the frets and dress them as needed, as well as polish my frets. I clean
and lubricate the Brazilian rosewood as well as other rosewood
fretboards using a damp lint free cloth and buff the dry with another
lntfree cloth.I will then follow with a small amount of unboiled
linseed oil to lubricate my fretboard or if you prefer some other oil ,
then feel free to use that, I just like the linseed oil myself. I allow
a little time for this to dry before I buff the fretboard dry being
sure not to leave any oil or residue on my fret boards. This step does
not need to be taken with maple fret boards as that are usually sealed
.
Next I remove the truss rod cover if applicable and drop a little
3 in 1 oil on the threads of the rod and wipe up any excess, I then
check the neck for any adjustments I may want to make and restring my
guitars to tune.
As for the electronics I will add a lubricant pot
cleaner to the inside of each pot very sparingly as well as the
selector switch insuring to turn them back and forth to spread the
cleaner around and again wipe up any excess that may be there. I then
button them back up and go onto general body cleaning and polishing.
For
this step I use a silicon free cleaner formulated for guitars
,available at places like Stew-mac and other websites that specialize
in guitar parts and luther supplies. gently wiping the cleaners off I
then follow up with swirl and scratch remover , followed by a good
silicon free guitar wax , I buff to a good gloss the entire guitar as
well as the back of the necks , followed by a product such as fast fret
on the strings .
I then go back to the case and either use a shop
vac or a carpet cleaner and follow with a shop vac to clean the
interiors of my cases. Insuring that the case interior is completely
dry I detune and place my electric guitar back inside, I should note
that I do each step on each electric guitar or bass guitar before
moving to the next step ,that way I do not have to be going back and
forth through each step ,but rather have a assembly line system in
which each guitar or bass gets the same treatment before moving on.
This
is pretty much the same steps I do for my acoustic guitars as well,
with the addition to checking the tops ,bottoms and sides for any
evidence of lack of humidity , I will place a homemade humidity device
in each acoustic at the beginning of the heating season and recheck
every 2 or so months until the weather permits I no longer have to use
the heater ,Heaters rob moisture out of our acoustic guitars and can
cause significant damage if left unchecked for to long a period. My
humidifier is basically a household sponge that I have soaked and wrung
out all the excess water that it absorbed, place it in a small biggie
that I have perforated and place that inside a larger biggie that is
perforated also, drape it between the strings and let it suspend inside
the sound hole of my acoustic guitar. It works great and costs a lot
less than store bought humidifiers.
Now as for amps, I variac them
up every now and then to keep them loose and in working order, I keep
them covered and condition the outside tolex with your basic armor all,
I might add that I do not hurry in any of these steps, I look forward
to spending the quality time with my girls and they to benefit from
the time well spent. I hope the holidays are enjoyed by all and as us
all this is just my news and views ,so until next month may all your
days be memorable, may all your friends stay true and may all your
riffs be killer , Greg.
Posted at 12:15 pm by gregsguitars
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