setting up guitars

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orksnork

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let's talk about "setting up" guitars...

you know...the process of taking a dirty gunked up guitar, and cleaning it up and making it shiny and new again...

what are your techniques for cleaning one up???

mine get REALLY bad REALLY quick when i'm on the road. large amounts of gunky sweat and possibly blood on the fretboard, pickguard, bridge and saddle etc...

what tools and tricks do you use???

generally, i like to take a bit of fine grain soapless brillo and rub the back of the neck down (it takes a little polish off, but i find that gets a little grippy when sweating live)

then i'll take the same style brillo, or perhaps the scrub part of a sponge and start working the gunk off of the fretboard...sometimes using some lemon oil

i'll take a variety of things to CAREFULLY get the gunk from near actual fret...sometimes a plastic knife, sometimes a real knife...and very very carefully scrape it out as to not disturb the fret itself....

usually the best i can manage is a good wipe with the rest of the guitar...POSSIBLY, from all the sweat you'll get a little rust on the pickups...
ill take a very fine file and run it through and around the screws to clean some of that up
 
Wipe the guitar down thoroughly after every session. This will cut down on the amount of times you need to 'scrub' it. Never use brillo. If you must use it on the fingerboard, use superfine finisher's steel wool only, but this is not a good idea either way. The fine wool dust gets magnetically drawn into pickup windings resulting in all kinds of problems. Same goes for metal filings from your file. It also gets on the finish and causes all kinds of fine scratching. Using ultra fine steel wool to 'dull' a neck's finish and make it slick is okay but should not be done repeatedly as you will eventually wear through the fininsh causing worse problems than some grime. If you feel you must do this, cover the pickups with tape and vacuum the area frequently. Again it must be super fine and made for finishes. Regular steel wool can contain silicone which is disasterous to any repair guy that may have to make finish repairs on the guitar in the future. 800-1000 grit wet/dry paper would be a better choice.

For fingerboard grime I use VM&P naphtha and a toothbrush followed by a fresh coat of fingerboard oil. Naphtha will also work on tough grime on the finish. Follow this with a quality guitar polish/finish conditioner.
 
I have always just hit my guitars with some pledge and a rag. It gets it clean enough for me. I have heard that you are not supposed to use furniture polish, but I have done it for years. It has been the only thing used on Dad's 79 LP custom since he bought it new.
 
I use Lizard Spit.
Any decent citrus-based fretboard cleaner will do the trick, although - as Justinf said - furniture polish works as well.
I don't wipe down my guitars after every play (even though I know I probably should), but I never play with noticably greasy or dirty fingers - always wash your hands first.

However, you're talking about cleaning your guitar, not setting it up. Setting a guitar up means making sure the action is set right, the truss rod is in the best position, and setting the intonation so that your guitar stays in tune when you play higher up the fret board, which is completely different.
 
Furniture polish will make your guitar nice and shiny. The problem comes when a finish repair is needed. The un-suspecting repair guy is suddenly faced with a nightmare of fisheyes and alligator skin. He then says to himself, "I'll bet there is furniture polish or Armour All on here." Furniture polish also leaves a build up on the finish and will eventually cause other problems. I strongly advise against the use of furniture polish on lacquer finished guitars. A good quality guitar polish should be the only thing used on a lacquer finish. There are a few good ones out there and they are relatively cheap. I personally use Martin guitar polish.
 
BTW...NEVER use furniture or any other kind of polish on an unfinished fingerboard such as rosewood or ebony. Clean with VM&P naphtha (zippo fluid) if needed, and treat with fingerboard oil.
 
Paper towels and guitar polish. I use a product called Powerchord, but if you can't find it (and they are a small company, though I'm told Sam Ash is carrying it now), the GHS guitar polish is really good too.

Beyond that, it is just a bunch of elbow greese.

You never want to use abrasives, if you can avoid it, though if the fingerboard needs cleaning, you can use OOOO steel wool on unfinished fingerboards. You just need to make sure you recondition the fingerboard with mineral oil or a good quality lemon oil (which will be mostly mineral oil).


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
pledge ?

i have been using pledge for years...... works fine for me
 
I always use double edge razor blades for lightly scraping the fretboard. Just take your time, it gets right up to the fret, gets ALL the crud out, clean as a whistle,{unless you use a dirty whistle}. The flexible blade conforms to the radius of the neck. Only use this idea on unfinished boards, naturally.
 
dave..... said:
i have been using pledge for years...... works fine for me
Click to expand...
Pledge will make your guitar shine. It will also make the cost of future finish repairs skyrocket. Furniture polish contains additives that are not friendly to the blending in of nitro finishes. If you don't feel you will need future finish repairs or your guitar is finished in a catalyst finish such as urethane, knock yourself out with the Pledge. If your guitar is finished in nitrocellulose lacquer...be prepared for an extensive bill if the finish needs to be repaired at some point. Silicones are a nightmare to remove completely and I think most repair guys will agree that fisheye flowout is not a 'cure' for these problems. Which means extensive cleaning using multiple processes and possible re-does of the spraying process. Again, don't use it on an unfinished fingerboard.

BTW...this thread should be titled 'cleaning of guitars'. 'Setting up' is adjusting the playability of the guitar by making mechanical adjustments to the saddle heights, truss rod relief, intonation, etc...
 
gbdweller said:
Pledge will make your guitar shine. It will also make the cost of future finish repairs skyrocket. Furniture polish contains additives that are not friendly to the blending in of nitro finishes. If you don't feel you will need future finish repairs or your guitar is finished in a catalyst finish such as urethane, knock yourself out with the Pledge. If your guitar is finished in nitrocellulose lacquer...be prepared for an extensive bill if the finish needs to be repaired at some point. Silicones are a nightmare to remove completely and I think most repair guys will agree that fisheye flowout is not a 'cure' for these problems. Which means extensive cleaning using multiple processes and possible re-does of the spraying process. Again, don't use it on an unfinished fingerboard.

BTW...this thread should be titled 'cleaning of guitars'. 'Setting up' is adjusting the playability of the guitar by making mechanical adjustments to the saddle heights, truss rod relief, intonation, etc...
Click to expand...
Silicone! :(
 
gbdweller said:
Pledge will make your guitar shine. It will also make the cost of future finish repairs skyrocket. Furniture polish contains additives that are not friendly to the blending in of nitro finishes. If you don't feel you will need future finish repairs or your guitar is finished in a catalyst finish such as urethane, knock yourself out with the Pledge. If your guitar is finished in nitrocellulose lacquer...be prepared for an extensive bill if the finish needs to be repaired at some point. Silicones are a nightmare to remove completely and I think most repair guys will agree that fisheye flowout is not a 'cure' for these problems. Which means extensive cleaning using multiple processes and possible re-does of the spraying process. Again, don't use it on an unfinished fingerboard.

BTW...this thread should be titled 'cleaning of guitars'. 'Setting up' is adjusting the playability of the guitar by making mechanical adjustments to the saddle heights, truss rod relief, intonation, etc...
Click to expand...



In addition to all of that, silicon will go right through the finish and you can just forget future refinishing completely.

There is one thing which works pretty well, though, which is a very thin sealer coat of shelac. Silicon does not effect the shelac. Unfortunatly, it mess up the color, and you will always have a witness line where the new finish shows up.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Light said:
In addition to all of that, silicon will go right through the finish and you can just forget future refinishing completely.

There is one thing which works pretty well, though, which is a very thin sealer coat of shelac. Silicon does not effect the shelac. Unfortunatly, it mess up the color, and you will always have a witness line where the new finish shows up.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
Click to expand...

You mean "silicone", don't you? Silicon and silicone are two very different substances. Silicon is a glassy, brittle, crystalline material from which we make semiconductor devices. Silicone is an oil-like substance used in lubricants, polishes, sealers, and Las Vegas showgirls' augmented mammalian protruberances (Frank Zappa's term). ;^)
 
I use regular guitar polish for the body and "fast fret" along with a soft tooth brush to clean the frets. My tooth brush has a weird taste afterwards though. (just kiddn) :D

Fast Fret is for your strings to clean and protect, but its safe for your fret board of course. I like it because it uses an applicator rather than a spray. Plus i like the smell of the stuff.
 
SC Johnson Klean N Shine.

My father has been using this stuff for as long as I can remember on his collection. The smell always reminds me of home.

Also, it works on every exposed part of a guitar.
 
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