Cleaning Up The Archtop

[cc_mac]

I am curious what you use to keep your archtop clean. I have both nitro and poly finished instruments. About 5 years ago I bought a bottle of Stewmac's Preservation Polish in an attempt to get some serious grime and haze off of my 1969 Starfire and was pleased at the amazing outcome. I've used it on some butt-nasty guitars that I've worked on for others. At this point I am looking for something as more of a maintenace cleaner/polish for the Starfire with nitro as well as my poly finished X-!50D and Cordoba Fusion 14 Rose. Product and technique recommendations welcome.

 

[guitarslinger]

I use Xymol at string changing time and a spritz of distilled water with a micro fiber wipe in between.

 

[mbuc]

I've been using Smith Pro Formula Polish for a while now (with a very soft cotton cloth) and I can absolutely recommend it.

http://www.juststrings.com/ksb-pro-polish.html

 

[davismanLV]

Here's the dealy-o... finishes don't need much "stuff" to look good. If they're damaged, you need to fix them. And if they're not, you need to keep them clean. Sometimes if there's "haze" you need to figure out why. Sometimes too much polish and product will make trouble. If you have an old guitar that needs cleaning.... serious cleaning, then use NAPTHA. It's a solvent that dissolves old grime, oils, and polishes and gets you down to the finish without harming the finish. Then you can buff and polish and whatever you want.

Thanks for the recommend, Markus!! I might try that soon. I think most of us love to slather products on our guitars and see results. Virtuoso products are top notch too!!

 

[cc_mac]

Thanks for the replies. Over the years I've used (and still do occasionally) naptha on very dirty finishes. Frankly, saliva does a pretty decent job in a pinch. The StewMac prevention cleaner polish is a pretty decent product. I've also used Meguiar's no 6 to polish up guitar finishes that were in bad shape and it gets some of the swirl out. At this point I was just thinking in terms or keeping a good thing going and I was wondering more about some of the guitar marketed cleaning stuff from Martin, Gibson, Dunlap etc. For now, I am going to try the distilled water in a spritz bottle with a flannel cloth for cleaning.

Just to add to this, for open grain fingerboards I generally clean the wood once a year with a stiff bristle toothbrush and Simple Green. Frets are cleaned and polished with 600 and/or 1200 grit sandpaper using a fingerboard guard. I use boiled linseed oil very lightly on the fingerboard when I am done cleaning.

 

[davismanLV]

First of all, I would never put Simple Green on a guitar. Especially a fretboard which is open grained, non-finished wood. They can tout it as "organic and natural" all they want, but it's chemicals and it's formulated for "washable surfaces", which I would probably interpret to mean non-porous. It's main ingredient is a type of alcohol. It also has colorants and fragrance and I'd be avoiding those as well. Does your fretboard get that dirty that it needs a heavy duty chemical cleaner? I use 0000 steel wool with the grain which takes off all surface dirt and grime and it also polishes up the frets. I would think you could also use NAPTHA on the fretboard as well, or denatured alcohol as well. They both evaporate fairly quickly. I'm sure others will chime in on this, but I wouldn't use Simple Green on the fretboard! Sounds like a bad idea to me.

As far as Martin, Gibson, and Dunlop products, it has been reveals numerous times on this forum and elsewhere they they contain silicone which should be avoided at all costs. The Meguiar's line of products that are labeled as "Paint Shop Safe" are good. That means that they have no silicone. But some of their products do. Read the label.

The StewMac Preservation polish is a good one, as are the Virtuoso Products.

My general thoughts on polishes and products for guitars is, less is more. Keep it simple. You don't need a lot of product on your guitar.

I'm sure other opinions will be forthcoming.

 

[cc_mac]

I'll revisit Simple Green's ingredients and see how to redirect that. Personally, no my guitars are not that dirty but I end up working on guitars that have never had the fretboard cleaned and are amazingly disgusting. All the crud comes foaming up with a brush and gets cleaned until the foam is no longer brown. I stopped using 0000 years ago as it just makes a horrible mess of dust and gets everywhere including stuck to pickups. I have used naptha on fingerboards too and sometime hit them with 600 grit is they are really nasty. I learned a long time ago to stay away from anything with silicone in it. I agree with you regarding less is more and keeping it simple. I think with the exception revisiting Simple Green that I will stick with what I've been doing. Thanks for you input.