Cleaning Guitar Strings

[Jack Fortin]

Good advice would be to wash your hands before playing. As a trumpet player playing a laquered brass instrument you soon learn that your sweat/oil that you get on the instrument is powerful enough to eat the laquer off!! Also saliva can be very acid, if you sing, bop sing over your guitar, a good idea to use a dry clean cloth for that reason as well. As far as the fingerboard wood goes, a good quality lemon oil put on the fingerboard (when strings are off or loosened and lifted) then wiped off would keep the wood from drying out, splitting, cracking. A good clean cloth should be used to wipe the strings after each playing. A friend who plays vigorous blues guitar with string bending has made a real mess of his fingerboard; I don't know if Oiling it might reduce that or not???///// STRIVE FOR TONE!

[brad4d8]

I forgot to put this in my previous reply, but I generally use a chamois to wipe down the body of the guitar, back of the neck and the strings before I put it back in the case. If there are any smudges on the body/neck, I use good old H2O, although I try to use distilled rather than tap water.
I also agree that having clean, dry hands is important to preserve strings.
Brad

[cisco kid]

Thanks for the advice
I guess it's all a matter of preference. I read some guitar players like "old strings"... Clapton wouldn't even let his guitar tech wipe his strings clean if the tech thought it needed to be. As far as keeping the fingerboard clean I read in an article in Guitar Player Magazine anything oily even if it's from a toxic yard, auto garage will keep the fingerboard from drying out....
A little bit of Naphtha (lighter fluid) on a cloth cleans the body of an acoustic or electric guitar (finish and hardware).
But don't put lemon oil on the finish as it gets into the wood and as Dan Erlewine says he prefers a dull finish on an acoustic guitar as the wood sounds better thru the years without any chemicals (oils, wax and absolutely no silicone mixed in) he rather use saliva on his own guitars to clean...not the customers of course.
The coated strings last longer but effects the tone and they are all basically made different. The guitar vintage purist don't do much to their guitars little as possible because the acoustic guitar will have a better tone as the years go by. The fingerboard you can keep the wood moist from drying but leave the body alone as much as possible.
As a fellow player sternly told me "just play the damn thing!"
To each its own I said.
Thanks for the feedback. It's nice to hear from other guitar players and hear from their personal advice

[Tom Karol]

1. "Washing your hands, and wiping the strings with a microfiber cloth immediatly after playing, are the two most effective ways to extend string life."

2. "I use a chamois to wipe down the body of the guitar, back of the neck ... before I put it back in the case."

That's all I do. I'm fanatical about having clean dry hands before I pickup the guitar.

[cisco kid]

Right, Tom Karol, I forgot about the microcloths. I buy my strings from Just Strings online and the last time I bought from them they added a microfilm cloth with my strings. I received from them a soft microcloth with the Just String logo on it for cleaning strings. It does a good job without any chemicals on it. Here in the Los Angeles County they are easy to find (99 cent retail stores have different types).
I know someone who uses a chamois to clean his guitars by using a little steam machine spraying the steam on the chamois - then wiping his guitar (finish) with the slight moist chamois then wiping the guitar with a soft microfilm cloth...that's it nothing else... no additives.