Guitar Care Tips
Written by admin on May 13th, 2011As a guitar player, you should not only know how to play your favorite songs on the guitar, but should also be particular about taking good care of it. With the right care and maintenance, a guitar lasts a long time, and can provide for years of entertainment.
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<li>First of all, you should make it a point to clean your guitar on a regular basis. As a guitar player, your body oils accumulate on the guitar, along with dirt and grime, to make playing difficult.</li>
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2. To start cleaning, you have to first wipe down your guitar strings using a soft cloth or towel every time you play the guitar. The guitar store will have a simple guitar cleaning kit that has a string lubricant that you can use to keep your strings and frets slick and shiny.
3. Wipe under the strings to remove all the dirt on the fretboard. This may be a bit time consuming; however if you plan to restring your guitar, this is the best time to do a thorough cleaning of the guitar. Once all the strings are removed, you just have to use a soft cloth to wipe off all the dirt and grime from the fretboard.
4. Make sure you don’t use any water to clean your guitar as it will only spoil the guitar wood, and hamper the guitar sound.
5. While storing your guitar, make sure you store it in a hard-shell case. These cases are found in various sizes; so make sure you buy one that fits your guitar exactly. Even if the salesperson claims the case is right for your guitar, it is better if you try storing your guitar in their presence. This way if the guitar does not snugly fit into the case, you can ask for another case, or get sufficient additional protection and support for it.
6. Though soft bags are okay for storing your guitar, a hard case is more ideal. It provides more and better protection to your guitar.
7. Buy a good guitar stand lest your guitar ends up leaning against a wall or lying on the ground when you don’t use it and lead to guitar accidents and mishaps. This can be avoided if you use a guitar stand to store your guitar and prevent it from warping or tripping over.
8. Your guitar should never be left overnight in the car. It not only gives an opportunity for your guitar to get stolen, the temperature in the car is not right for the guitar. Too high temperatures because of the sunlight can lead to fading or cracking of the guitar’s finish. On the contrary, too much of cold too can damage the guitar neck, inlays and truss rod.
9. For optimum care of your guitar, you can get a guitar humidifier. This is a small device that maintains the humidity level of your guitar, to add years to its life. It fits into your acoustic guitar’s sound hole and if you use an electric guitar, you have to place it in its case.
With the help of these guitar cleaning and maintenance tips, you will be able to increase the life of your guitar, and enjoy playing it for a longer time.
