how do i clean a abu 5500ca

What Will I Learn?

What causes your guitar to rise dirt and how to prevent information technology.
How to efficiently clean a guitar.
Which products to use to clean a guitar without damaging its coating.

How To Clean a Guitar: Step-by-Step

Later in the article, we'll go into far more detail about the points below. Only if you want to thin to the chase, past follow these concise steps to ready your guitar shine like new!

Wash your hands – It's obvious, but it's also the nearly probative thing!
Get rid of the strings – This will make cleaning the body and fretboard removed easier.
Clean the fretboard – Use fine steel wool to remove stubborn gunk from Rosewood/Ebony/Pau Ferro fretboards, and apply Citrus limon Oil to re-hydrate. Use a muffle cloth to unclouded Maple fretboards.
Polish the guitar body – For Poly-finished (gloss) guitars, spray guitar burnish onto a wooly cloth and wipe down. Use a dry part to buff out the cultivation. For Matte/Satin/Nitro-finished guitars, use only a dry cloth.
Refresh the computer hardware – If you want your hardware to shine, use a soft-footed cloth and a tiny measure of guitar polish to slay dirt or dried sweat. WD-40 prat be used to remove thicker colly or rust.

How Does a Guitar Get Dirty?

The amount of dirt that your guitar builds up will depend a lot on the surroundings that you play the most in, and for how long. E.g., if you're someone WHO goes retired and gigs most weekends, then you're probably to a higher degree misused to enduring 1000-degree stages and standing under enough lights to guide a plane in for landing. Playing an hour set under intense stage kindling makes you sweat – worst affair for your guitar!

An image of a band performing onstage

Playacting in this context causes you to sweat buckets, which is like kryptonite for your guitar. Sweat and grease on your guitar's finish not lone looks jolly bad, but it tail wear away the lacquer and cause irreparable damage to the fretboard in particular. IT prat also reach and harm your guitar's physics components and hardware, causing rust and therefore even more problems.

If you exercise between 1-2 hours a day at home in a cool and well-ventilated board, then your guitar will probably not require cleaning really often. It's all about the context and the conditions.

How Do I Keep My Guitar Clean?

Before we get into the nitty gritty of how to clean certain aspects of your guitar, IT's worth mentioning methods that you can try to stop your guitar from construction up grime in the first place. Information technology'll save you time and effort in the future. Trust me!

Wash away Your Hands Before You Play Guitar

Before I cull up my guitar, I forever wash my hands. That's my life sentence hack – and you guys ass have it. But to make up truthful, oodles of players already act this. Nonetheless, you'd be real surprised by the number of musicians I've seen who have picked up their guitars after eating soiled solid food and then wondered wherefore their axe is plastered in smudged fingerprints. Not to mention that the strings sound corresponding rubber bands!

It's such a simple thing to practise; not but keeping your guitar sporting but also allowing you to eek more life come out of the closet of your string section. This saves you some time and money, As you won't have to keep buying new strings and pass ages changing them! Sensible look around 10 minutes for your custody to fully dry, then play outside to your heart's subject matter.

Wipe Down Your Guitar's Strings

Products such as GHS' Fast Fret or Jim Dunlop's Ultraglide 65 are great for extending the life of your guitar strings. Just apply these cleaning lubricants to the strings to remove any soil, and you volition get sparkly-audible freshness also A a faster playing experience thanks to the smooth feel that they leave. These products also aid to remove fingertip-elicited dust and dirt from the fretboard – two birds, one stone!

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Livelihood Your Guitar In Its Case

You may not want to try this, specially if you like to exhibit your guitars on the wall. However, the major downside of leaving your guitars prohibited is that dust will easily accumulate on them. Sprinkle isn't needs as big of an issue A sweat, but IT posterior arm in the crevices of your guitar and affect its electronics and their functionality ended time.

You know that crackling noise you've heard when moving your guitar's pickup selector surgery volume pot? Ninefold out of ten, dust is causing that. This posterior be passabl easy single-minded by removing the cavity home base on the back of your guitar and blowing the dust out, but if you possess a Strat or a similar guitar where the electronics are attached to a scratchplate – this is more of a headache.

And so, putting your guitar back in its case (whether a hardcase or gigbag) is advisable. Information technology will keep your guitar generally dust-free-soil, and will ensure that IT girdle reliable and noise-free.

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How To Gear up Your Guitar For Cleaning

Inevitably, your guitar wish need cleaning at some point, fifty-fifty if you follow the above recommendations. You can clean your guitar without removing the strings, but a thorough clean may make this necessary – non to mention a lot easier! As a rule, I generally schedule cleaning my guitar with when a string change is needed. It just makes more sentience. And speech production of strings, we presently whir 4 for 3 connected all guitar strings!

4 for 3 on Electric Guitar Strings

Soh foremost, wash your hands and set up an country to place your guitar. I'd highly recommend cleaning it in a well-lit space so that you can easily topographic point every last of the imperfections that take the most attention. You can set up the guitar connected a bench or table/desk, or straight-grained just rest IT happening your circle if you favour.

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How To Clean a Guitar Fretboard

This is probably the most important part of your guitar to spick frequently. The fretboard is the part of your guitar that gets subjected to the near vesture and penalisation, and excessive build-up of sweat and sprinkle can cause permanent damage if you'ray not careful.

When sweat dries and evaporates it dehydrates the wood, which can lead to cracks development or the constitution of everlasting marks. Below we have specified ways to clean the main fretboard materials that you'll find on most guitars.

Rosewood, Ebony & Pau Ferro Fretboards

Jim Dunlop makes a number of products that are perfect for cleaning Rosewood/Ebony fretboards. But if you've been super lazy and a lot of gunk has shapely up on your guitar's fretboard, then steel wool might beryllium essential to use. If you bash, then make a point to only use 0000 steel wool. It's fine steel fibres will take away any unwanted dirt without causing harm or wear to the frets. In fact, it will even polish them to an extent.

Before you use wire wool, construct sure that you cover your guitar's pickups with masking tapeline to forbid the infinitesimal antimonial particles from sticking to their magnets. Once you've cooked that, put through happening roughly latex gloves and gently rub the wool into the fingerboard making a circular front for ultimate effectiveness. After you've completed this, wipe away any rubble and make steady the surface is clean-cut.

Now you can move on to conditioning the fretboard, which rehydrates the forest and deeply cleanses it to look away just like new. Products so much atomic number 3 Jim Dunlop's Guitar Fingerboard Kit or Citrus limon Oil are perfect for cleaning and conditioning. You stool apply this with a damp cloth or soup-strainer, operating theatre combine this with the preceding step and rub it onto the board with blade wool. However, exist benevolent with the amount that you habituate. What you don't want to do is completely drown out the fretboard, As it will potentially cause warping issues. A olive-sized goes a long elbow room!

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Maple Fretboards

Maple fingerboards are more susceptible to display grease and marks than Rosewood or Ebony boards, referable their lighter wood inflect. And what adds insult to injury is that conditioner products cannot glucinium victimised on Maple. So, what is the best fashio to clean a Maple board?

One of the best methods to clean an undressed Maple fretboard is to use ultra-fine 0000 wire wool. This removes dirt without causing impairment to the frets. A slightly damp cloth sack besides make up used, peculiarly on satin-processed maple, but in the main void using anything other than this.

A Maple fingerboard that has been lacquered should glucinium cleansed only with a damp (or dry) fabric. Using wire wool will take away the shine and leave alone a matte-equivalent finale, while lemon oil will dull the finish and similarly detract the sheen. Strictly role a dry or lightly dampened cloth. You could even use a bit bit of Jim Dunlop Rule 65 Guitar Polish if the lacquer is very thick.

A Maple guitar fingerboard

How To Clean a Guitar Body

It's unavoidable for the body of your guitar to build-up some Simon Marks and grease o'er time, regardless how measured you are. Luckily for you, the body is easier and less-intimidating to plumb than the fretboard. However, the eat up of your guitar's body must be considered too. So make a point to be cognisant of what type of finish information technology has before you go ahead and houseclean it.

For all of the finishes below, spend a penny sure to manipulation a soft cloth when wiping descending the organic structure. The Jim Dunlop Refinement Textile is a great lightweight cotton cloth that you can easily store in your guitar case or gigbag.

Gloss & Poly-Finished Guitars

The legal age of factory-made guitars are finished in either a polyester fabric or ployurethan finish, which gives a glossy protective layer to your instrument. This makes it the easiest conclusion to clean As it doesn't leave the wood holey or absorbent. You can therefore usance a variety of polishes or waxes to hold your guitar a look worthy of being in a showroom.

The industry-standard Jim Dunlop Formula 65 Guitar Polish is a great cleansing agent that you privy use to wipe away whatever dry sweat or grease. It's best to avoid spraying information technology directly onto the guitar, so just atomizer a couple of times onto a cloth and then wipe down the guitar. Here is the process:

Dunlop 65 Guitar Polish sprayed onto cloth

You can eat up information technology away with some Jim Dunlop Platinum 65 Spray Wax for a professional "skilled-as-new" pleasing if you want to. The dandy thing with the wax is that information technology provides a dirty-resistant tutelar roadblock for some time, meaning that your instrument will last out clean for a administer longer.

Remember to avoid exploitation lemon oil colour or typical family cleansing products on guitars, as they contain substances that will dull and degrade the finish. It's almost always optimal to stick to specialist products when dealing with your pridefulness and joyousness, so check KO'd our full range of maintenance and cleansing products.

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Matt-up & Satin-Destroyed Guitars

A lustrelessness guitar finish should only ever be cleansed with a scorched cloth. If you have ever owned a matte-through guitar, you'll know that over time the polish will wear downwardly and lustrous floater may start to develop where your workforce feature made the most contact with the musical instrument (much as above the bridge where your picking hand rests). This means that using a polish or wax will lone exacerbate this job, so it's best to wipe a dry cloth very softly onto the guitar's opencast and to invalidate cleaning solutions.

Satin-finished guitars have more of a semifinal-gloss look, but have a similar smooth feel to matte-finished instruments. Regarding cleaning guitars with a satin finish, the same process applies and only a dry material should be used. A slimly dampened cloth would too be okay if a rattling thoroughgoing sporty is necessary.

Cellulose nitrate-Finished Guitars

Guncotton-painted guitars are more uncommon these days, however Gibson and Fender use this old-school coating on umpteen of their high-end custom shop models. A nitro finish is reasoned to beryllium more "breathable" for the wood, as it leaves it slightly porose and open on the surface.

This finish wears easily over time, and broadly speaking you should try and fend off using intense polishes to clean it. If you actually call for to, dampen a cloth with some H2O but make indisputable that it is fully wrung out beforehand.

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How To Clean Guitar Hardware

Cleaning the computer hardware on your guitar is something you besides have to be fairly careful with. Metals are prostrate to erosion, and the salts in sweat and bark oils can cause rust to develop terminated meter.

The most prone pieces of hardware on your guitar are the bridge, pickups and frets. Most guitarists rest their picking hand on the bridgework, so dried sweat backside develop on the saddles. The same applies with pickups that have open coils, and rust can set off appearing if you don't pay attention to these areas.

It's best to clean hardware with a soft material victimization only a very light amount of guitar polish. The polish bottom help to remove any dirt, patc the soft fibres in the cloth bequeath bring on the glisten spine. Fitting make a point to leave no more refine residue on the hardware, as this could corrode the metal slightly. Hard to accomplish areas (like between thread saddles on a tune-o-matic bridge) can be clean victimisation a cotton bud – great for removing dust.

If the hardware on your guitar is very badly affected by corrosion or rust, then information technology might atomic number 4 better to remove those components and give them a more sharp clean. WD-40 bum be used to rig thick grime and rusting, practical using a soup-strainer. If you practise utilisation this, then make sure that the pieces of hardware that you'rhenium cleaning have been removed from the guitar first. Getting this message on the instrument could ultimately harm its finish.

Locking tremolo bridge on 1998 Fender American Deluxe Stratocaster

How To Clean An Acoustic Guitar

Largely, cleaning an physical science guitar is no more different to cleaning an tense. You'rhenium unlikely to find acoustical guitars with Maple fretboards, all the same the majority of them will feature film either Rosewood or Ebony boards like their galvanizing counterparts. This substance that lemon oil will suffice; not only cleansing the corporeal only rehydrating IT excessively – giving it a refreshing rent of life!

Acoustic guitars give notice besides comprise terminated in protective polyester fabric Beaver State polyurethane finishes too, but different electric guitars, you'll mostly run across natural or satin-finished acoustics. Much of modern acoustics will have this end A it is more porous, which lets the wood breathe. Step-conscious acoustic aficionados believe that this results in a Thomas More resonant and open sound. Thus, you should apply the same rules that I mentioned above for cleaning matte and satin-finished instruments. Mostly, employ only a dry cloth and a little bit of water if you make to to remove stubborn marks. Job done!

Conclusion

A clean guitar simply looks and feels better than a unclean, grubby instrument. Information technology's imperative to keep your guitar clean if you want it to last, and to prevent replacing any of its parts in a few age time. Retrieve this: look after your guitar and your guitar will see after you.

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