Official Luthiers Forum!

I know polish with silicon is a big no no. But I can't find any info on the Dunlop stuff online. The polish seems innocuous enough. Same thing with the lemon oil, (I've heard conflicting ideas about using it for cleaning fretboards). What do you all use for cleaning guitars?

naptha

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

Lemon oil (until it runs out, and then I'll get some Howard Feed'n'Wax).
And Roland makes a detail polish that is amazing! It takes off that hazy crud on old lacquer finished guitars like a champ. It made me a believer.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

I've used Dunlap "65" polish on over 5,000 guitars with never an issue.

For fret boards that are not maple, use naphtha on maple boards, we like Howard Feed-n-wax.

I like the Stew-Mac polish. They state that it contains no silicone. I use mineral spirits for cleaning fretboards then follow up with Tre-Wax.

Damp rag for the body, 0000 steel wool for the fretboard. I think that putting oil on a fretboard is like putting ArmorAll on your car tyres - it makes them all shiny and black and is totally unnecessary. Martin specifically recommended not using it on nitro finished guitars, I finish with nitro, I don't use it. Your mileage may vary.

Wanted to add that water is indeed a very good way to lift heavy dirt.

But what I really wanted to add is be careful on exceptionally dirty guitars. You can make them worse with polish and then have to spend hours with heavier duty cleaners to remove the smears that you created. On really dirty guitars I tell the steward that I'm not cleaning it or they are agreeing to paying time and materials at the rate of this $85 an hour. That usually gets me out out of it...

Lastly be careful who's guitar you clean. I cleaned a guitar for a famous, star player and he got pissed because he wanted it to be all dirty on his album cover picture that was being taken the next day. Who knew....

I actually had a case like that - the guy wasn't famous or anything but his fretboard was just covered in nasty stuff. I told him I would clean that off and polish the frets - he said "don't you dare, that's part of my sound"

And if you try to polish an old cracked nitro finish all you do is get polish in the cracks and make them stand out.

LOL that's part of his sound, dirt!!!

On really gunked up fret boards I scrape them with a single edged razor blade and I've been doing it for years now so I can avoid chatter. It makes fast removal of the worst finger jam and then I hit the board and frets with OOOO steel wool (tape off the pups if an electric) and the OOOO steel wool gives it a more homogenized look with the shiny frets. Works great but we have to watch out for the slobs that like their dirt..

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays Freeman my friend!