Advice

Cleanliness

Before picking up your instrument to play: wash your hands!

Dirty and/or greasy fingers will clog your fingerboard and soil your strings. Sweaty, damp hands will shorten the life of your strings.

When you’ve finished playing, wipe your strings with a cloth. Don’t forget to run it between the fingerboard and the strings: this removes all sweat and delays the oxidation of the strings.

Storage

Your guitar or bass is made of wood, so a few rules must be followed. Wood is a sensitive material that reacts very quickly to changes in temperature and/or humidity, especially on acoustic instruments.

A rapid change in temperature and/or humidity will disturb the mechanics of the wood. At best, your instrument will become unstable. At worst, its integrity will be affected: cracks, loose braces or bridge, etc.

To avoid this kind of trouble

• Don’t store your instruments in rooms that are too damp.
• Conversely, don’t put your instruments next to the fireplace or against the radiator.
• Beware when winter arrives! We usually overheat our homes, and warm air lowers the humidity level. So be careful!

Humidity that is too low will most often cause cracks: the wood shrinks and eventually splits. With humidity that is too high, the glue joints are put to the test, and parts may come unglued.

Maintenance

The fingerboard

• On clean unfinished fingerboards (rosewood, ebony)
  I recommend lemon oil every 6 months. Apply a small amount directly to the fingerboard between each fret… spread it well. Let the oil soak into the wood (1 minute minimum), then wipe off any excess with a cloth.
• On dirty unfinished fingerboards (ebony or rosewood)
  Lemon oil is also effective for cleaning fingerboards. But if the guitar is a year old or more, the fingerboard has never been cleaned and the grime has become ingrained: lightly moisten the fingerboard with turpentine, then, using steel wool (triple zero minimum), rub the fingerboard along the grain until the grime is gone.
• On finished fingerboards
  Wipe with a clean, dry cloth at every string change. Microfibre cloths are best.

Finishes

Use a clean, dry microfibre cloth. If the finish is very dirty, naphtha (“essence C”) works very well and is safe on polyurethane and nitrocellulose finishes. If you want to revive a finish that has dulled a little, super nicko works very well. Otherwise, use specialist products sold in your music shop. Avoid any other products or solvents.

Transport

A few basic rules for any journey, long or short: the instrument must be in a suitable gig bag; it shouldn’t move around inside but be held snugly. Your case should be as rigid as possible.

For long journeys

Whether by plane, train or car — especially by plane: loosen your strings! Otherwise you risk a nasty surprise on arrival.

In the car, never drive with the guitar under the rear window. Two reasons:

• In summer, the high temperature under the rear window would put your instrument in serious danger. Risk of parts coming unglued, partially or completely! (Yes, it’s true — I’ve already seen an old guitar turn into a kit!)
• If you brake hard, your instrument would become a real projectile!!!

And don’t forget that your car boot turns into a real oven in summer.