Summer stages, sweaty hands, late-night recording sessions, and the simple grime of everyday life. It’s not a matter of if your guitar gets dirty — it’s a matter of when. Taking the time to give your guitar a full-service cleaning once or twice a year is a process that too many guitarists neglect, even though it can drastically improve your instrument’s look, feel, and performance.
But where do you start? There are so many parts to clean, so many products to choose from, and so many things to learn. Well, buckle up. From polishing to potentiometers, this article comprehensively covers just about everything you could possibly ever want to know about guitar cleaning!
- Guitar Cleaning 101
- Prevention Beats a Cure
- How Do I Clean My Specific Brand of Guitar?
- Acoustic Guitar Cleaning
- Common Questions
- Start with a Scratch-free Surface
- Cleaning Your Guitar’s Neck & Fingerboard
- Cleaning Your Guitar’s Body
- Polishing Your Guitar’s Body
- Waxing Your Guitar’s Body
- Cleaning Your Guitar’s Hardware
- Cleaning & Polishing Your Guitar’s Frets
- General Maintenance
Guitar Cleaning 101
First off, we’d like to take a second to explain how this article is structured. While the concepts below are loosely placed into a strategic order, everything is compartmentalized for an easier understanding. If you’re a complete beginner, then we recommend you read through to the end of the Common Questions section first to get a better handle on some of the basics before diving into the rest of the article. Also, while this article is primarily focused on electric guitar cleaning, these concepts are just as applicable to electric bass guitars.
Finally, there’s one rule you should always remember when cleaning your guitar: if you’re unsure of what product you need or not 100% certain of how your instrument’s finish will react to a certain product, then a dry or very lightly damp, clean microfiber cloth should be your first course of action. When it comes to guitar cleaning and care, it’s always a good idea to start with the least aggressive method and work your way up.
Prevention Beats a Cure
Before we start talking about polish, oil, cloths, and cleaners, we really should discuss the easiest way to clean your guitar: making sure it never gets dirty in the first place! From the gunk on the fingerboard to the haze on the hardware, most accumulated dirt can easily be avoided by simply cleaning your hands before playing.
What’s more, if you take a second to wipe down your strings after playing, then you’ll elongate the life span of your strings. It only takes a moment to wipe down your strings — and anywhere else you have made contact with the guitar — with a dry microfiber cloth. This certainly pays dividends to the prudent guitarist. A player looking to maximize the life of their strings might even consider picking up one of our string cleaners or string lubricant products.
Where you store your guitar is very important, too. Keeping your instruments in their cases is an excellent preventative against dust and humidity fluctuations. Proudly displaying your instruments is certainly more inspiring and convenient, but it comes at a dusty cost. If you keep your guitars out in the open, then it’s best to store a couple of dry microfiber cloths nearby to wipe down the body and neck whenever you’ve finished playing or if you start to see dust forming.
How Do I Clean My Specific Brand of Guitar?
Cleaning your guitar is not particularly dependent upon what brand or model of guitar you have. However, the type of finish your guitar has and where exactly that finish is applied are incredibly important. Certain brands, like Gibson, will almost always utilize a nitrocellulose finish, while most modern-style guitars will usually feature a “poly”-based finish (like polyester, polyurethane, etc.). Before you even think of applying a polish, cleaner, or any other type of product to your guitar, however, make sure you can answer these three questions:
- What type of finish does my guitar have? (Is the finish a member of the nitro or poly family? Is it some other type of proprietary finish?)
- Is my finish satin or gloss?
- Is the cleaning product I want to use compatible with my type of finish?
If you can’t answer these questions yourself, then don’t worry — we’ve got your back. Your Sweetwater Sales Engineer will be able to give you the lowdown. Once you know all the prerequisite details, you’ll be free to browse our website with the confidence to find the proper products for your guitar’s respective finish.
Acoustic Guitar Cleaning
Good news for acoustic guitar players: almost all the techniques we discuss in this article are equally applicable to the acoustic guitar, too. Cleaning your guitar’s neck, body, and hardware is nearly identical for an acoustic as it is for an electric. So, unless we specify otherwise, you’re good to go! A bit of caution we’ll give you is to keep a careful eye on the soundhole. Cleaners, polishes, and even water should never be allowed to get into the soundhole, as it’s not good for the exposed wood inside. When you clean around the soundhole, just pay a little extra attention to make sure nothing drops in. And, if something does, then clean it out immediately.
Note: While acoustic guitars are cleaned in the same manner as electrics, humidity control is a far greater concern when it comes to standard maintenance.
Common Questions
Anyone approaching guitar maintenance from the very beginning is bound to have a few questions. So, here are a few commonly asked questions we get all the time from our inquiring customers.
Cleaning? Polishing? What’s the Difference?
The purpose of a cleaning product is rather self-explanatory, but it can be easy to run into confusion when entering the polishing world. To make matters worse, a great deal of modern cleaning products are two-in-one cleaners/polishers. Let’s set the record straight: cleaning products aid in the cleaning of dirt, grime, and grease from your instrument. Polishing is a strictly cosmetic process that can help even out superficial scratches in your finish and create an overall shinier, glossier look.
While we recommend most players periodically clean their guitars, polishing is less necessary for fans of rugged, worn-in finishes. We also suggest you never polish a guitar with finish checks, cracks, or other imperfections that might allow the compound to sneak its way under the instrument’s finish.
If you simply want to keep your guitar in top shape, then a kit with both cleaning and polishing products is preferable. You can even streamline the entire process with a multipurpose cleaner/polisher product. As always, make sure that the product you purchase is fully compatible with your guitar’s finish.
How Often Should I Clean My Guitar?
Unfortunately, this is one question you will have to answer for yourself. Do you gig? Do you keep your guitars in the open or their cases? Do you tend to get a lot of sweat on your instrument? How often you must clean your instrument depends on many, many factors. Some musicians prefer a beat-up, dirty look, while others want their guitars to maintain the factory-fresh look as long as humanly possible.
Admittedly, certain processes (such as polishing the body or frets and oiling the fingerboard) should only be performed a couple of times per year; a good rule of thumb is that any method that utilizes an abrasive or oil should be approached with caution. As for the rest? Feel free to wipe down your axe with impunity.
Should I Buy a Cleaning Kit or Individual Products?
Cleaning kits are excellent choices, and many of our cleaning kits at Sweetwater comprehensively cover just about every process mentioned in this article. But if you already have quite a few cleaning products lying around, then you might be better served purchasing products individually. However, an all-purpose cleaning kit is an excellent choice for the guitarist starting their guitar maintenance arsenal from scratch.
What Products Are Safe for My Guitar?
This can be a difficult question to answer if a product doesn’t clearly specify what type of finish it’s intended to be used for. We always recommend making 100% sure that your product is compatible with your instrument’s finish, but this warning is doubly given to anyone with a nitro-finished guitar because nitro finishes are far more fragile and reactive than poly-based finishes.
We’re often asked about using various household cleaners on guitars — and the answer is almost always a “no.” When it comes to our treasured instruments, we’d rather be safe than sorry. You should always avoid anything with silicon, as it makes future repairs to the guitar’s finish near impossible. Also, anything with isopropyl alcohol will tear right through a lacquer or French polish finish.
Start with a Scratch-free Surface
Before you start removing your strings and breaking out the cleaning supplies, it’s always a good idea to start with a clean, safe surface to set your guitar on. Make sure to choose a spot with ample lighting and put some sort of padding between the guitar and the surface on which you’re resting it. A soft, clean towel or blanket works in a pinch, but you must make sure that your chosen surface is as clean as it can be. While cleaning and polishing your instrument, you’ll have to move it around quite a bit, so any hard debris or dirt stuck to your resting area will work its way across your guitar’s finish and leave scratches.
If you’re worried about finding a safe surface, then we strongly suggest purchasing a purpose-built work mat. These mats are often slip resistant, nonreactive, and easily washable, making them just about the best place to rest your guitar during the cleaning process. What’s more, many come with their own neck cradles to give your guitar’s neck a place to sit when cleaning the fingerboard or frets. If you perform any sort of cleaning that requires you to put pressure on the neck (such as cleaning the fingerboard, frets, etc.), then a neck cradle is a must-have.
Cleaning Your Guitar’s Neck & Fingerboard
The guitar neck is almost certainly where you’ll spend the bulk of your time cleaning. How often and how thoroughly you need to clean your fingerboard heavily relies upon whether your fingerboard has a finish, how often you wipe the strings down after playing, and whether or not you clean your hands before playing.
Cleaning Unfinished Fingerboards
On most guitars, the only place that the wood is truly exposed to the elements is the fingerboard, so that is going to see far more dirt than the rest of your instrument. As a rule of thumb, darker fingerboard woods (like rosewood, ebony, laurel, pau ferro, etc.) are almost always left unfinished.
What products should you use to clean your unfinished fretboard? We recommend a fingerboard oil or conditioner product, as these will both clean and hydrate your fingerboard all in one go.
Apply the conditioner or oil with a clean rag, toothbrush, paper towel (they’re messy and not ideal but will work in a pinch), or even your finger, making sure the oil gets into all the recesses. You really don’t want to flood the board, so it’s best to start off with a little and increase the amount if you need more. Many guitarists like to let it sit for a couple of minutes so that it can properly work its way into the wood.
Now it’s time to remove the grunge. Using a clean rag, toothbrush, or one of our specialized cleaning implements, swirl your hand around your fingerboard with a light amount of pressure. Cotton swabs or even an old credit card acting as a scraper are excellent tools for scooping out the dirt that so often accumulates right around the frets. Steel wool is often recommended online to clean extremely dirty fingerboards, but we strongly suggest you steer clear of it; steel wool leaves behind tiny metal particles that can seriously damage your guitar’s electronics.
Once you’re done, use another clean rag to dry off the board, and make sure you check that the cleaning product didn’t spill over onto the side of the neck or body. It probably won’t harm the finish, but it will ruin your shirt!
Conditioning Unfinished Fingerboards
This process is almost identical to the process above — only with a little less scrubbing. When the wood on your fingerboard starts to lose some of its luster and becomes pale, it’s usually time for a bit of oil or conditioner. If you’ve ever received a new or used guitar, and the rosewood/dark wood fingerboard looks unpleasantly light, then it’s probably because the fingerboard has dried out and needs a bit of love.
One quick note: you should only apply oil or conditioner to your fingerboard once or twice a year. Too much oil is not good for wood. If you’re finding that your guitar’s fingerboard is frequently drying out, then it’s time to invest in a humidifier or a couple of humidity packs to toss in the case to stop your humidity issues at the source.
Cleaning Finished Fingerboards
Fortunately, the cleaning process is much simpler for guitarists with finished fingerboards. A clean, dry microfiber cloth or a clean cloth with lukewarm water will often do just fine. If your guitar has a high-gloss poly or nitrocellulose finish on the fingerboard, then you could also use the same cleaning product you use for your guitar body if you make sure that you remove all the product when you’ve finished.
Cleaning Satin-finished Fingerboards
If you have a satin-finished fingerboard, then you should probably just stick to warm water and a clean microfiber cloth, lest you unintentionally turn the satin into a semigloss with a little too much effort.
Cleaning the Rest of your Guitar’s Neck
Like everything else in the world of guitar cleaning, this process greatly depends upon what kind of finish your instrument has. If your guitar has a gloss polyurethane or nitrocellulose finish, then you can use a compatible cleaning product with a microfiber cloth. Players rocking a satin-finished neck will be best served using a lightly damp microfiber cloth.
While they might make your neck look nice, we don’t recommend polishing compounds for the back of the neck, as they can very easily build up and leave a sticky feeling.
Cleaning Your Guitar’s Body
The most important element here lies in choosing the right cleaning product for your guitar’s respective finish. As always, poly, nitro, and satin finishes will require their own specialized products, but the actual process of cleaning is essentially identical. A clean, lightly damp microfiber cloth used in a light swirling motion is usually enough if you’re just dealing with fingerprints and maybe a little forearm sweat. This is generally all you should ever use if your guitar sports a satin finish.
That said, some brands do make purpose-built cleaners that are specially designed for satin finishes. These can be an excellent choice for de-griming a satin-finished guitar, but always make sure the cleaner in question is safe for your guitar’s specific style of satin finish.
If your guitar wears a gloss finish and you find that the damp cloth isn’t cutting it, then it’s time to pick out a cleaning solution. As long as you ensure that the product you choose is compatible with your instrument’s finish, then you should be good to go. Cleaning your guitar’s body can be deceptively simple, and not every product abides by the same rules. That said, make sure you read your cleaner’s specific instructions and stick to their guidelines by the letter — this goes double for multipurpose cleaning/polishing/waxing/etc. compounds that may require a nonstandard application. Throw in a few clean microfiber cloths, and your guitar will look like new in no time.
Polishing Your Guitar’s Body
This step is purely cosmetic but can make a world of difference on an old, dull finish.
First off, make sure the guitar’s body is clean. If hard particles or debris are trapped in the grime on your guitar’s body, then swirling your polish cloth around is simply going to scratch up the finish.
Like cleaning products, almost every polish on the market will include its own dedicated set of directions. But if it doesn’t, then the process is usually the same as polishing anything else: apply the polish to a clean cloth, lightly rub it into the finish until you’re happy with how it looks, and then thoroughly dry it with a clean microfiber cloth.
A word of caution to those who have not polished before: by their very nature, polishing compounds are abrasive. Superficial scratches (very thin scratches that rest only in the clear coat) on certain finishes can often be removed with proper polishing. However, the polish isn’t filling in the scratch — it’s removing a microscopically thin coat around the scratch to make everything level. Let’s be clear: hand polishing is almost always safe on a gloss finish, but you should be careful with how much pressure you use and how you apply it. A technique involving a microfiber cloth and a light-to-medium amount of pressure is well within the safe zone; a high-power buffing wheel is better left to the professionals.
Polishing Satin-finished Guitars
This section can be covered in a single word: don’t! Even lightly polishing a satin finish will result in a dull haze, so it’s best to only worry about the cleaning process on a satin-finished guitar.
As your hands rub against your guitar’s finish, the satin will naturally develop into the same semigloss haze that develops with guitar polish — this is normal. For better or for worse, any part of a satin-finished guitar that regularly experiences friction or comes into contact with the oils in your hands will only stay satin for so long.
On the back of the guitar neck, this naturally worn halfway point between gloss and satin is seen as a plus by many guitarists. The splotchy nature of this process is not nearly as desirable on the top of the guitar, though. Some players attempt to take these spots out with polish, but that’s the exact opposite of what you want to do because that will simply expedite your guitar’s semi-haze state. Cleaning the spot might help, but it’s unlikely you’ll ever be able to bring the finish back to its original factory satin. Like with most satin-finished things, you’re better off just sticking with a clean, damp microfiber cloth.
Polishing Gloss-finished Guitars
You’re probably getting sick of hearing it by now, but the most important element here is choosing a polish that’s safe for your guitar’s finish. Once you’ve done that, it’s as simple as following the instructions on the bottle. No instructions? The steps usually go as follows:
- Ensure your guitar’s top is clean and free from debris.
- Apply a small amount of polish to a clean microfiber cloth.
- Using a light-to-medium amount of pressure, swirl the cloth around the area of the guitar you wish to polish.
- Once you’ve finished polishing, use the dry part of the cloth to buff out the polish that’s still on the body.
- Make sure there’s no extra polishing compound left in the cracks and crevices around the guitar’s top (it often turns into an irritating white, flaky residue).
As mentioned previously, you could also stick with a multipurpose cleaning/polishing/waxing/etc. product to simplify the entire process of cleaning your guitar’s body. We carry quite a few kits that include a cleaning product and polishing compound designed to work in tandem for the best possible result.
Polishing Vintage Guitars (Plus Relic’d Finishes, Heavy Wear & More)
This is where things get a little dangerous. We can’t comprehensively cover every type of aged finish here (natural or otherwise), so we’ll just say that you might want to skip the polishing process entirely on these types of instruments.
Most guitars in this category, either vintage or relic, feature a nitrocellulose finish. That’s not a concern in itself, but nitro finishes develop a characteristic of cracking that’s often emulated on relic’d guitars and simply part of the deal on vintage guitars: checking.
Checking occurs on nitro-based finishes when there’s a rapid change in temperature, the wood shifts, or parts of the guitar experience tension or compression (like where the neck screws into the body on a bolt-on guitar), creating a spidery stream of razor-thin cracks and lines. It’s purely cosmetic, but they’re still technically cracks. And once polish gets into those cracks . . . good luck getting it out.
Even if your relic’d guitar doesn’t have checking, many relic’d and vintage guitars have exposed areas of raw wood (more places you don’t want to rub a chemical compound) or very thin finishes that aren’t meant for heavy polishing. Once again, we recommend you simply stick to very light cleaning on relic’d, vintage, and heavily worn guitars.
Waxing Your Guitar’s Body
Finally, if you’re fully dedicated to keeping your guitar in performance-ready condition, then you might consider guitar wax. Like a car, a wax-based product will form a light protective barrier over your instrument’s finish. It can also fill superficial scratches and leave a shinier surface overall.
Admittedly, this process is less common than standard cleaning and polishing, but it certainly leaves a stunning aesthetic impact. We strongly recommend restraint when applying any type of wax to a guitar, as it can easily build up and leave a gunky residue if not applied properly. Pay special attention to areas where wax may worm itself into. If you’d rather have the benefits of wax without going through the arduous three-part process of cleaning, polishing, and then waxing, then you’ll be happy to know we carry a few all-in-one products that are more convenient alternatives.
Lastly, make sure you use a wax that’s compatible with your guitar’s finish — be especially careful if you have a nitro-finished instrument. If you have a relic’d, vintage, or heavily worn instrument, then wax should most likely be avoided.
Cleaning Your Guitar’s Hardware
Are your guitar’s bridge, tuners, and vibrato looking a bit greasy or caked in fingerprints? Here are a few easy ways to tidy up your guitar’s hardware.
Treating Fingerprints, Grease & Basic Grime
A clean cloth and a bit of elbow grease are all you need to clean up the typical dirt that accumulates on your bridge, tuners, and other hardware. Some players may use a very light cleaning solution or a bit of metal polish on a cloth, but any sort of deep cleaning is going to require disassembly.
Cleaning Especially Dirty Hardware
It’s time to break out the screwdriver. If your hardware is seriously dirty, then disassembly is nonnegotiable. A rag with a little oil or a light solvent will go a long way here, and you can always break out the toothbrush or cotton swabs to get into tight spaces. The actual cleaning process is essentially identical to how you would clean the hardware if it was still attached to the instrument. But now, you’re removing the parts to ensure your cleaning solution doesn’t get on the guitar’s finish.
Corrosion or serious damage is a different story. While it’s highly variable from person to person, the sweat left on hardware will almost always result in corrosion after a certain period of exposure. As always, prevention is key here, so if sweat ever encounters your hardware, then thoroughly wipe it down with a dry rag after playing.
Beyond that, fixing corrosion starts to hit a gray area between guitar cleaning and repair, so we’ll keep it brief. If you begin to see spots of serious corrosion, and a light scrub with metal polish, oil, or a very light abrasive material doesn’t remove it, then you’re probably better off bringing your guitar to a professional or devoting some serious time to learning the art of guitar repair.
Cleaning & Polishing Your Guitar’s Frets
These tasks lie firmly in the “advanced” category of guitar cleaning, but we’ll give you a basic rundown in case a couple of your frets start to feel rough.
Many online resources recommend steel wool for these tasks — we don’t. Steel wool creates errant steel particles, which can very easily ruin the electronics on your guitar. Polishing and cleaning your frets are processes best left to professional techs and guitarists with very strong backgrounds in DIY maintenance.
However, we do carry a few products that make it much easier for the guitarist who’s building up their at-home repair repertoire. For example, the Lizard Spit MP 15 ultimate fret polishing system is a great choice for players looking to learn the basics of fret polishing.
We even offer an array of MusicNomad Fret Shields that are useful for beginners and professionals alike. These Fret Shields remove the need to tape off every bit of your fingerboard by offering a simpler snap-on solution. Finally, if you just need to clean up a tiny bit of oxidation or corrosion, then the MusicNomad FRINE Fret Polish will serve admirably. Once you start encountering serious grinding while bending or spot the telltale signs of corrosion, it’s probably time to bring your guitar to a professional tech.
Note: If you need to polish a fret on a finished fingerboard (or an unfinished fingerboard you’re particularly keen on preserving), then use a fret guard or tape off the area surrounding the fret. Abrasives and finished surfaces are not a good mix, and you can easily scuff up your finish by mistake.
General Maintenance
While these steps might not be considered “cleaning,” they’re still integral parts of routine guitar upkeep that are best performed when your strings are off and you’re already in cleaning mode.
Tightening the Screws & Hardware
Here’s a simple rundown: Guitars have strings. Strings vibrate. Screws don’t like vibrations. It’s that simple. Wood screws tend to stay in place, but with every chord you strum, your machine screws are plotting their escape.
This is especially evident on the guitar’s tuners and bridge, where the hardware experiences the greatest level of vibration. It only takes a minute to break out the screwdriver, hex key, or nut driver, and tightening the screws ensures that your hardware stays firmly in place and free from rattle. You don’t want to raise the action or modify your setup, so only tighten the screws when they’re rattling or if you can tell they’re starting to drift.
Another quick tip: snug is good, but don’t go overboard. Overtightening can strip the screw head, or worse — it can potentially damage the finish. Cracks and chips where screws come directly into contact with the instrument’s finish are common sights in any guitar repairperson’s workshop, so be gentle when you tighten them. 99% of the time, just a touch past snug is tight enough — if you’re breaking out both hands or encountering formidable resistance, then it’s best to rethink the situation.
One last thing: make sure you’re using the right screwdriver. No, this isn’t an attempt to sell you a special “guitar screwdriver.” We simply mean that you should ensure you’re using the proper size of screwdriver for your respective screw. Too big or too small . . . It’s very, very easy to strip out the top of a screw with an improperly sized tool. And it’s certainly not a very fun process to remove them after that.
Cleaning Scratchy Potentiometers
One of the most irritating sounds a guitar can make is when you reach over to the volume knob and are greeted with a snap, crackle, or pop that sounds as though your amp’s cone has been replaced with sandpaper. It’s very rarely an issue on newer guitars, but as your instrument gets older, dust and grime love to find their way into those twisty variable resistors on top of your guitar. These are potentiometers, or “pots.”
Many guitarists have brought their instruments into repair shops, believing their guitars need major electronic surgery. But the reality is that a quick blast of contact cleaner into the pot often restores a guitar to a state that’s like new.
If your pots are scratching up, then here’s how to fix them:
- Hold a paper towel or rag around the pot to catch any errant cleaner.
- Blast a small amount of contact cleaner into the pot. (The hole is often found right near the lugs, but the location of the opening can vary.)
- Twist the knob back and forth to work the cleaner into the pot’s entire range.
- Make sure everything is dried off.
Caring for the Nut Slots
Nut slots aren’t usually “cleaned,” but they do require periodic maintenance that’s most easily accomplished when the strings are already off. If you hear a ping sound when tuning and your string suddenly jumps up in frequency, then you likely have an issue with your nut slots.
This often means your slots are too tight. However, do NOT attempt to file or modify them without the proper tools or experience, as it’s very easy to ruin your nut slots by mistake. But another option is fully reversible and can frequently fix up your slots with a smooth, slick action.
First, if your slots are dirty, then clean them out with a dry toothbrush or a damp cotton swab. Next, use graphite from a pencil or one of our specialized nut lubrication products to coat the slot, taking care not to get any on the rest of the guitar. (An easy way to prevent spills is to set a paper towel or rag on either side of the nut.) This will greatly reduce the friction of the string in the slot when you bend or use your tremolo unit. Plus, it can often drastically improve the performance of a less-than-perfectly cut slot. If you’re a big bender or love to dive-bomb on a non-locking nut, then lubricating the nut slots is one of the best ways to maximize your tuning stability.
Need to Pick Out a Few Polishes?
We’d like to reiterate a point made right at the beginning: the best way to clean your guitar is to never let it get dirty! Admittedly, that’s easier said than done, but we hope we’ve covered just about every question you’ve ever had about the art of guitar cleaning.
Whether you’re looking to shine up your hardware or give your guitar a full teardown, make sure to reach out to one of our incredibly knowledgeable Sweetwater Sales Engineers at (800) 222-4700. They’ll provide you with expert advice on what guitar-approved cleaning products you should stock up on!