The care of your guitar is the most important point to extend the life of the instrument
Here are 10 essential tips for you to enjoy your guitar for many years:
- Change your ropes from 2 to 2 to minimize the change of tension in the mast.
- Every time you play the guitar, a dry cloth passes through the strings and the back of the mast, thus extending the life of the strings and preventing oxidation.
- The guitar fretboard should not be cleaned continuously, with a cleaning every 2 months is enough. It is important not to clean it with very wet and aggressive products. Loosen the ropes and with a slightly damp cloth or an old shirt clean any dirt you can see.
- Once a year or when you see that the fretboard is really dirty you can disassemble the strings completely and perform a deep cleaning. Using Zippo gasoline and a toothbrush we can perfectly clean the fingerboard leaving it perfect. For the corners under the dishes we can use a toothpick. Once clean, we will hydrate with special lemon oil for guitars without silicones and remove the excess with a dry cloth.
- If at the same time we clean the fingerboard we want to polish the dishes with steel wool and metal polish, we will leave the dishes as when we bought the guitar. (important to cover the fretboard before with bodybuilder tape.
- For the maintenance of the guitar paint, if we only want to clean the dirt we can use a damp fiber cloth. But if we want to give back shine to the guitar we must use some polish without silicones like the one we sell on our website. If we want to repair small marks or scratches in the finish we must disassemble the guitar and subject it to a more thorough polishing process.
- Do not use rubber, PVC and derivatives in guitars with nitrocellulose finish as they can attack the finish.
- Always use a different rag for the fingerboard than for the body, different products are used in each of them and it is not good to mix it.
- For the maintenance of the metal parts of the guitar, such as the bridge, tuners, pickup poles etc. What we should use is a dry cloth to clean them after touching and avoid oxidation and wear. If they are very dirty and there is dust embedded in the corners use a brush or compressed air and as a definitive method completely disassemble and use a metal cleaner.
- Do not use abrasive or generic cleaning products on your guitar, buy specific products for musical instruments or perform cleaning and maintenance tasks with dry rags. And always contact a good luthier in case of a serious problem with your guitar.
The use of quality and specific products for the varnishing of your guitar, is essential to ensure that your guitar does not deteriorate over time.
In Nitorlack we have all kinds of quality products, as well as step by step tutorials on how to do all the processes of varnishing your guitar.
