Now that I think about it I only clean my guitars about every two years or so. :D

For a long time I used Johnson paste wax (I think it was for wood floors) but I have not been able to find it. What do you think of using that Wolf?

IMHO SRV's and EVH's guitars look like that because they are tools that are in heavy usage, several hours a night, several days a week.

Also IMHO they could take a Korean strat off the rack and make it sound good.

We used to go see a great blues player, Randy Rich, we got to be pretty friendly with him so we would bring him some of our more unusual guitars and he would tune them up a play a set with them.
:eek:

Hey man, we were just razzin' you. Take it all tongue in cheek. ;)

Of course,we can also start a debate about what constitutes "patina"...I'd say "practicing patina" is analogous to "dirt" and should be cleaned with a damp sponge and warm, soapy water...However, "gig patina" should always be preserved for future generations...

:D

As opposed to "playing naked and having a teenage girl throw beer at you" patina... :cool:

Nate, my dirt and grime comment was meant as a joke, really. I was borrowing from various tone arguments at various forums such as "Do inlays affect tone" on the Les Paul Forum.
I tend to keep my guitars pretty clean, but I also appreciate a nicely worn and cracked finish, as well.

Fair enough....and that's why I don't like stating opinions via the internet. Emotional tones can get added that weren't meant to be there. I'm not up in arms by any stretch. I was just posting a thought - making conversation. I agree about the "gig patina" when I see a famous musician's guitar in a museum, it better look worn.

Notice how I didn't object to the 15-yr old girl and the throwing beer. Who would ;)

Clean it with the fleece of the 15 year-old girl...

the 15 year old's father?

crap, I'm getting old...

Well of course he'd be mad for her wasting beer like that....
Any good father teaches his daughter the value of alcohol.

...but we would all be better off without it...

I'm still curious, why Pledge is bad for guitars?

I have been to Wolfs website and I'm sure he knows his stuff.

When I get a new guitar I tie a rope to it then drag it a hundred feet down a gravel alleyway, I then set fire to it, then pee on it to put the fire out., that gives ir a real cool tone.

Of course you have to use a 100% hemp rope, the gravel in the alleyway has to be Virginia granite, the fire has to be set with 98 octane chevron gas, and I only drink bottled glacier water before peeing.

BTW - I thought the skin part was hilarious and, of course, funnier for obviously being true. :D

The underage girl event was only the "last" time my guitar got drenched in some sort of fluid - mainly because it was one of my band's last gigs :( But I am very certain from prior experiences it also has a fair amount of dried sweat, beer, spit (not mine), skin and blood...mostly blood from when I broke picks and then accidentally tore up my fingers on the strings.

I guess you could argue that furniture polish would affect the tone on a fine accoustic, but not on an electric. Not in a million years. Unless you show me an o-scope trace to prove it...

Wolfe, is a rabid b!tch a tele drop-in?

I think its less about tone, more about the way certain furuniture type products can affect finishes on both wood and hardware. Certainly silicon based products build up.

My sources tell me Pledge does has a silicon content in it. Although it's been several years, I recall hearing that silicon will make any refinishing virtually impossible, aside from the waxy yellow buildup.
Believe it or not, Naptha (lighter fluid) makes a great cleaning solution. And, check out "Guitar Honey"


Yes, although it is currently undergoing redesign. Instead of mega-hot 15k, it'll be around 10-11k with vintage style plain enamel 43 guage wire for a hot Broadcaster feel. My personal Tele preference is around 8.8.5k, Plain Enamel and Alnico 5

No silicone in Pledge. Just looked at the lable Doesn't really matter in today's mostly polyurethane finishes....

Isn't what my sources say. At the very least, it used to contain silicone. I look at it like I look at Armor-All. Once bad, always bad.
Also, not very many high-end guitars worth polishing are using Polyurethane finishes. You'll find Nitro in just about any high end guitar worth it's wood.

Silicone is used heavily in most F/G mold release products. You can certainly refinish those. I use lighter fluid to clean most of the gummy stuff off of the back of my guitars when I tape a set list to them.

Wolfe, I'm building a tele repli-tar franken axe and want a DiMarzio type crunch, overdrive sound out of the bridge, but don't want to re-route....

Check out the link above for "Alnico 5" and tell me if that's crunchy enough :D (pardon my lack of playing abolity - not much time for it these days) All three recordings were done with the same guitar, same pickup.

Ok. I'm busted,. I just REALLY read the label and of course there's no list of ingredients. But I DID fire off an e-mail to SC Johnson to find out.

Strats, Les Pauls, and SG's made in the last 20 years ARE poly. I've got 'em. Vintage are obviously not. What's vintage anymore?
:) besides me.

According to most of the dorks on Ebay these days, anything made in the 80's is "vintage" now. :rolleyes:

Polyurethane....Polyesther. Ok, the middle-range will use Polyurethane more commonly, the lower end tends to use Polyesther. Polyesther sucks. Thick as a penny. My Tele is a Polyurethane finish, and it's great. I forget it's Polyurethane though, because when I hear Poly, I think "Polyesther."
I do prefer Nitro though, although some people's skin chemistry can turn it to goo.

Addmittendly, I never really got into finishing.