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Hello all and good morning.

A customer brought a blonde 70s 335 in the shop to sort sitaring with new bridge on G string and general setup. Finish is gunked from years of playing sweat, smoke and probably some beer added to the mix. You can tell by the state of the surface that someone at a go at it previously and abandoned the project.

I have tried cleaning the caked-in stuff first with regular SM cleaner/gloss, then naphta, then my precious last bottle of Prof Green, which seldom fails, but no dice. Some places I was able to get to the lacquer and end up with a clean, polishable surface I'm happy with, protecting it with a good coat of carnauba wax.

I'm afraid all this rubbing has close to no effect in some places. It even seems to eat into softened lacquer, such as where the picking arm rests. So I stopped, and have not tried swirl remover or any other stuff, but I'm mighty frustrated to leave such a beautiful guitar in a state of uncleanliness.

What do you suggest?

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Pierre Castonguay

I use BOSS guitar detailer for hard to clean guitars.

Sometimes, lemon oil will work.

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

Chris, Martin used to have a little blub on their web site and in their owners manual that lemon oil could damage lacquer finishes (which was why the recommended not using it on fretboards). I've never had confirmation of this and they no longer have the warning, but that has prevented me from using lemon oil on any of my guitars.

And to Smylight, you nave already tried naphtha, that is what I have used. It is supposed to be "safe" on lacquer where other solvents are not.

Maybe lemon oil won't work for Martin, but it was a staple on my bench for over 30 years and it never hurt any nitro or acrylic lacquers.

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

I've had pretty good luck starting with warm soapy water, a rag, and some elbow grease to get the big build up off, obviously not drenching the guitar. I try to focus on small areas. I'll often let naptha sit on stubborn places.

As a slight aside, not sure if others have the same experience, but I feel especially on acoustic guitars, a deep clean like that improves the tone. Guitars become more lively, and the tone becomes more complex.

Once in a great while, it's warm soapy water applied sparingly. Conor is correct. Decades ago I had a Jazz Bass on the bench that was filthy. I tried everything in my bag of tricks and it would just smear. In desperation, I tried warm soapy water on a cotton cloth - it came right off. Turns out it was a thick layer of a sugary soft drink....How do I know? I got brave and rubbed my finger on it - it tasted sweet. Took awhile - but I got it sparkling clean. It was in the bridge, under the pickguard, on the pickup covers, on the maple fingerboard.....

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

If you're going the soapy water route, Murphy's Oil Soap seems better than most at cutting gunk build up.
Works great for wet sanding too.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Be aware that areas of softened lacquer may extend though the entire depth of the finish. If you remove all of it you may end up going down to the wood. So know when to stop.

Thanks Chris. Funny you should say that. After having cleaned then oiled the fingerboard with mineral oil, I noticed that areas on the finish that had been touched by oil seemed to want to clean up a bit. So I used a little to test and indeed it helped. But I’m a little cautious to use this on old lacquer.

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Pierre Castonguay

Same here, but having read the same as above I quit using it some years ago.

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Pierre Castonguay

Pretty much what I have on my hands... I'm real afraid I'm gonna hurt the lacquer. I'll take it to my trusty friend the paint specialist so I won't ruin anything. My own 2000 335 has just such a problem where my arm is resting. It seems the sweat causes the lacquer to react and become soft. Maybe it's just in my head, but I can get much every guitar that comes my way nice and clean, but once in a while there's one that seems to resist the process. And then it’s a 335.

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Pierre Castonguay

Yeah I know, that’s why I’m heading to my paint specialist buddy. This was starting to look alarming so I knew when to stop.

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Pierre Castonguay

You should use popular guitar cleaning kits.

Patric Byrne.
https://musicboxessentials.com/clean-an ... itar-case/

Hey Pierre - For us when a guitar is very dirty we tell the client that we do complimentary cleaning on a basically well cared for instrument but when it's heavy gunk it's time and materials.

I'm also careful to not touch a heavy dirt instrument with my cleaners unless I intend to finish the job since the smears of partial cleaning look pretty bad.

Step one for Gibsons with heavy grime for me is:

1). McGuires fine detailer as recommended by Mario P. here 15 years ago. It's basically ionized water and I use it with copious amounts of paper towels to lift the heavy dirt off that will come off. Plain water spritzed on works fine too in my experience. Before anyone gets their panties in a bunch over some silicone, the small amount in the McGuires it's minimal and not going to stop any professional refinishing when properly done.

2). McGuires "Fine cut cleaner" gets rubbed on and off as needed next to take off the stuff that water won't and it will take off most of the rest of it. It won't hurt the finish.

3). Naphtha for spots of paint from hitting walls and adhesives from stickers, etc, what won't come off with the other two.

4). The board if very gunked up I scrape with a razor blade followed up with OOOO steep wool followed up with Howard's Feed-n-wax to condition and do a final cleaning on the board. It also pops the wood beautifully and does not build up. I've used it on thousands and thousands of guitars that go through our shop.

5). Finally Dunlap 65 polish works great when the instrument is clean and again the little amount of silicon will not prevent finish repairs in the future when the repair person knows how to properly decontaminate before shooting finish.

A 335 can be a big job and I would charge for a couple of hours and this would include cleaning up metal parts too and lubricating the screws on the AB-1 and where ever else would be prudent.

Good luck bro! When I work on a 335 I put on Blind Faith's album which Clapton used a red 335 on

becareful with lemon oil. especially if the guitar has any cracks, repaired or other wise and if the guitar has checking!!

my secret for this problem is Phil's Guitar Clay Detailer Kit. works majick on old martin,gibson, and fenders. the kit comes with the clay bars rags and carnuaba wax. it has never failed. i sued to use mcguires clay bars but i bought phils about 10-15 years back and i still have it! pay attention to the detail!! this will work no doubts in my mind. dont listen to the old timers telling you to use wd40!!!
Phil's Guitar Clay Detailer Kit.... thank me later

This is a new one to me too but I like it and Googled the kit it's available lots of places including Musicians Friend and G*itar C*nter. I'll have to try it.

I clay bar my Honda why not a guitar the process is gentle and controllable. Great idea.

its the only thing that has worked for me every single time i was painted into a corner. on another plus note, the kit's clay bar is made by mcguires.