getting stuck on the neck?

**twilightblue100** · 03-06-2012, 10:05 PM

Hi guys, Here's what might seem a silly problem but I assure you it is real. I was at band practice last week and we were on the stage with all the stage lights on. IT WAS HOT up there ,no surprise right. we were playing some intense Latin songs. So I'm sweating and my hand is getting stuck every time I had to slide up the neck. So I keep drying me and the neck off, but it's really not helping. Since then I've cleaned and polished me Gibson SG Custom, tried using different soaps and cream on my hands, tried not washing my hands just before playing, all did nothing. Any ideas or products you know of would be welcome.

**mr. beaumont** · 03-06-2012, 10:35 PM

Tiny bit of talcum powder on the back of the neck.

**twilightblue100** · 03-06-2012, 11:02 PM

Thank's, I'll try it

**cosmic gumbo** · 03-08-2012, 02:31 AM

Jaco Pastorius preferred chicken grease. They said he ate KFC before gigs and didn't wash his hands, so he could fly on the neck.

**burndog** · 03-09-2012, 11:21 PM

cosmic gumbo, you have cracked me up a couple times tonight...maybe it's the avatar, but I never know if you're serious or not

**whatswisdom** · 03-09-2012, 11:37 PM

Originally Posted by cosmic gumbo

Jaco Pastorius preferred chicken grease. They said he ate KFC before gigs and didn't wash his hands, so he could fly on the neck.

...oh, I get it. Chicken pickin'.

**pauln** · 03-10-2012, 04:07 AM

I once washed and waxed my car before a gig. After buffing the wax (Turtle wax) my hands felt kind of dry... they stayed super dry all night.

Next time you wax your car, keep the buffing rag in a plastic bag. Wipe your hands on it for a few minutes before playing and see if you don't like it.

TH · 03-10-2012, 07:43 AM

I once washed my car with chicken grease (Chicken wax: from the ears of the chicken) and the next day I got 3 speeding tickets and an invitation from KFC to race NASCAR for them. Then a dog ate my car.
Fast food.
David
PS. a sprinkle of baby powder, I use the stuff that mixes cornstarch and talcum. 'little bit on my left hand. Works like a charm. I learned this one from Jim Hall.

**mr. beaumont** · 03-10-2012, 09:06 AM

Jaco did use chicken grease, supposedly...he kept a chicken bone in his bass case...but that was for his fingerboard, not the back of the neck.

**Kojo27** · 03-10-2012, 09:36 AM

When I was in high school and during a year or two of college, I wanted to be a professional magician - a sleight-of-hand artist, doing much of the stuff David Blaine does so well today (his magic, not his stunts!).

Sweaty hands are death to a sleight-of-hand guy, and the thing they do is find a tap of COLD running water and hold their wrists, veins-side up, beneath the cold running water. They hold them this way until it's unbearable - I don't remember exactly, but seems it was twenty minutes (magicians are masochistic).

Now, when someone turns the water off, the feeling will slowly return to your hands, and moving your fingers rapidly about in the air (hocus pocus!) helps. Playing scales might do the same thing. The object is to regain full use of your fine motor skills, without using your forearms, which act as storage for your hard-won stash of coldness. And (they say) this coldness somehow works its way toward your extremities and prevents hands & fingers from sweating.

For up to 30 minutes, your hands won't sweat. Or mine didn't.

It's quite a trick in itself. One for Myth-Busters. I must confess: my hands don't really sweat anyway (not normally), so I was a poor subject. But even the big guys I'd meet at magicians' conventions, who sweated profusely, did this (you couldn't go into a bathroom without finding a guy in a Tux, bent over a sink, freezing his wrists beneath icy tap water.) Seems they wouldn't have been going through the pain if it didn't help some.

For what it's worth...

kj

**pingu** · 03-10-2012, 01:10 PM

I use this before a gig , helps
Finger Ease Guitar String Lubricant Spray: Amazon.co.uk: Musical Instruments

**twilightblue100** · 03-11-2012, 01:30 PM

Thank you all for your tips. They are really cool. I just bought the baby powder with corn starch.I'm gonna try that first. I already cleaned and waxed my guitar. I used a three step process from D'addario. It seems pretty smooth. Thank's again everyone.....................

**PTChristopher** · 03-12-2012, 11:00 AM

[The OP] >>> I've cleaned and polished me Gibson SG Custom

I do not want to Gibson-bash in any way. They make their choices and so do guitar buyers, for whichever reasons please them.

So only observations.

Gibson, for some years now, uses a lacquer that is the softest, most flexible, and stickiest of any I have ever encountered.

The web-lore that surrounds this is remarkable, and seemingly isolated to the extremes of Gibson love/hate.

In my observation and lacquer experience, the Gibson softness is not primarily an artifact of a guitar's newness. Yes in some unusual cases it will harden a little bit more over time. In most cases the lacquer is as hard as it will get. This does not correlate with some strong opinion by others that it does harden over time.

It is remarkably sticky. This bothers some and does not at all bother many.

It is very resistant to checking and crazing, which is a significant benefit to many and may reduce Gibson's warranty load regarding finishes.

It will creep (a sort of extremely slow speed flow under mechanical load). Don't go to GC and try this, but a fingernail press will very easily indent the finish with no crazing. It's a very soft lacquer.

In my opinion, most polishes and waxes will be have very temporary benefits. But for some players they work.

A reasonably skilled luthier can also dull the finish on the neck. This can help some players and if done very well can also be reversed back to a gloss with the net removal of a miniscule amount of lacquer.

Many polishes (and Finger Ease) contain silicone. This can make for some difficulty in a re-finish since lacquer can develop "fish eyes" around miniscule amounts of silicone.

But, there is no need to panic here. Auto body shops very reasonably keep silicone FAR away (like the next town), but on a Guitar it is really pretty easy to clean and scuff sand a guitar for a repair with no practical trouble from silicone polishes or fingerboard treatments.

Sure, somewhat better to have no silicone, but witch-hunt panic over it is not warranted in my opinion. The practical problems come from repeated use of silicone when it gets rubbed into the lacquer. Silicone is quite inert, so it does not damage the lacquer, but is sure does get down into micro scratches and such. If encountered in a repair or partial re-finish, it takes some effort to deal with it. But it is deal-with-able.

Almost all nitro lacquers contain silicone. This does not mean that silicone on a surface is no problem, it is just an ironic part of the picture.

All in my opinion.

Chris

**twilightblue100** · 03-13-2012, 09:33 PM

Very interesting opinion, Thank you. I've been a Gibson guy since 1958.Good, bad or in between, I just love them.I have to thank Mr. Beaumont . I tried the corn starch baby powder Today as soon as the problem arose .It worked like a charm. Thank you. I really like this forum and jazzguitar.be

TH · 03-14-2012, 12:55 AM

Originally Posted by twilightblue100

Very interesting opinion, Thank you. I've been a Gibson guy since 1958.Good, bad or in between, I just love them.I have to thank Mr. Beaumont . I tried the corn starch baby powder Today as soon as the problem arose .It worked like a charm. Thank you. I really like this forum and jazzguitar.be

You're welcome. And again thanks to Jim Hall for passing that tip on to me. Not to mention modern guitar...
David

**blindjimmy** · 03-16-2012, 08:33 PM

Pauln is onto something here . Ron Kirn , the amazing luthier , uses quality car wax on the back of the necks . All the slipnslide you could hope for , well , from a guitar neck anyways .

**BenThayer** · 03-18-2012, 10:47 AM

When we got our grand piano we asked the dealer how to wax it, b/c black is a difficult finish to maintain. He said they only use Maguiar's car wax - the kind w/ a high carnauba content. I now use it on all my guitars, standup bass, and even on our wooden furniture. Makes all that stuff incredibly easy to keep clean, and as blindjimmy noted, the necks are fast.

**cosmic gumbo** · 03-18-2012, 06:22 PM

This continues to remain the state of the art.

**chazz** · 03-26-2012, 06:53 PM

THANKS COS got some laughs here and the got hungry for some chicken lickin string grease

**Sharks** · 03-26-2012, 07:55 PM

There's a super anti-perspirant called Dri-Clore which you apply overnight and wash off in the morning... Once you've used it a few times you only need to reapply every week or two to stop sweating all the time.

I had a friend who used to use it on his palms when he was a real estate agent and needed the confidence of a bone-dry handshake.

You should be able to find it on most online Pharmacies...

**Evan** · 03-28-2012, 07:06 PM

That's a beautiful can.

**tele jazz** · 04-08-2012, 08:19 PM

Sand the back of the neck with some fine grain paper to get a matt finish

**chazz** · 04-08-2012, 09:03 PM

Dos Eqius On Ice In A Bottle Keeps The Wolds Most Interesting Mans Palmdry

**zigzag** · 04-10-2012, 03:30 PM

Originally Posted by PTChristopher

[The OP] >>> I've cleaned and polished me Gibson SG Custom

Gibson, for some years now, uses a lacquer that is the softest, most flexible, and stickiest of any I have ever encountered.

The web-lore that surrounds this is remarkable, and seemingly isolated to the extremes of Gibson love/hate.

In my observation and lacquer experience, the Gibson softness is not primarily an artifact of a guitar's newness. Yes in some unusual cases it will harden a little bit more over time. In most cases the lacquer is as hard as it will get. This does not correlate with some strong opinion by others that it does harden over time.

It is remarkably sticky. This bothers some and does not at all bother many.

It is very resistant to checking and crazing, which is a significant benefit to many and may reduce Gibson's warranty load regarding finishes.

All in my opinion.

Chris

Good post. I've worked with nitrocellulose, polyester, and polyurethane coatings for 35 years. I'm not sure I can explain the phenomenon described by the the OP, but I'll try.

Nitrocellulose is a relatively hard/brittle resin that dries tack free very quickly, even when slow evaporating solvents are used to keep spray nozzles open. However, "plasticizers" are often added to nitrocellulose coatings to keep them flexible and keep them from cracking. These plasticizers have a "gummy" feel, and they tend to migrate to a coating surface even after the coating is dry. I don't know what formulation Gibson uses in their lacquers, but this could easily be the culprit.

I have had the problem described with my Studio LP, but never with my ES-335. I have noticed that when I have put a standard guitar polish on my LP neck that it tends to get a bit "buggery" even days after, so I have stopped polishing the neck, and that seems to have helped.

The issue seems to be worse with nitrocellulose than with polyester or polyurethane resins. The polyester and polyurethane systems are cross-linked giving a very high density polymeric film having more flexibility and toughness with much improved resistance properties. Plasticizers are generally not needed in polyester/urethane chemistries.

I'm thinking a small amount of talc (as someone astutely suggested) would help tremendously.

BTW, I personally would not use Johnson's Wax on my guitar. Most likely the ingredients in Johnson's Wax:

Stoddard solvent (aliphatic solvent like mineral spirits) or Naphtha
Paraffin waxes and Hydrocarbon waxes
Carnauba wax
1,2,4-Trimethylbenzene

**ohlcv** · 04-11-2012, 05:51 AM

Originally Posted by Sharks

There's a super anti-perspirant called Dri-Clore which you apply overnight and wash off in the morning... Once you've used it a few times you only need to reapply every week or two to stop sweating all the time.

I had a friend who used to use it on his palms when he was a real estate agent and needed the confidence of a bone-dry handshake.

You should be able to find it on most online Pharmacies...

+1
Thanks for the tip!
Just started trying this - it actually works. I've now stopped the applying every night stage and onto the once-a-week stage - still seems to be working after 2 days of non use.
Also available from Amazon.