How To Guitar Tune - Learn with FREE Guitar Tips!

How to clean your guitar is a fundamental skill that every guitarist must eventually learn unfortunately. You may never understand just how your guitar got to be so dirty and disgusting, but cleaning it is the answer.

Learning how to clean your guitar isn't really rocket science, and it doesn't take that much time to perform some basic up-keep. Here are 10 tips that can get your guitar cleaner in a short period of time.

1. Household cleaners can work for the guitar body.

If you have some Windex or any other kind of glass-cleaner laying around the house, those are very good for the guitar body. Just use a few squirts and you can remove all those finger prints and smudges.

2. Did your pick guard come with a plastic film?

This is more of a preventative measure on how to clean a guitar, but a good idea when you purchase a guitar and it has a thin plastic film on the pick guard is not to remove it. You can save yourself some scratches and smudges by leaving that on until it eventually just starts peeling off.

3. Keep your hands clean.

If you want less oil and grease getting on the fret board and on your strings, just remember to wash your hands each time before you play. It's a relatively quick idea and you'll save yourself in the number of times you need to change your strings.

4. Clean between restringing sessions.

The best way how to schedule a cleaning for your fret board is to wait until your guitar needs restringing and wipe it down when the time comes. Otherwise you might put it off until the thing just feels disgusting and looks even worse.

5. The hardware needs a good buffing or cleaning once in a blue moon.

Cleaning the hardware on the guitar can be a real pain, and most of the time it gets neglected. Get some small utensils and brushes to really get in those grooves and give your hardware a once-over.

6. Get the dust off that thing.

If you have a guitar that you normally keep on a guitar stand, chances are that's it's collecting a small amount of dust. Clean that guitar how you would a dresser with some pledge and a dust rag.

7. You have a guitar case for a reason.

Keeping your guitar on a stand is good if it's being used very often or for shows, but any other time, you have a guitar case. Prevent your guitar from getting dusty and effected from damage and lock it up in its case.

8. Dry hands mean less oil on the strings.

When your hands are wet, the oils and grease from your hands and fingers are a little more liberal on where they stay. Dry your hands better and you can keep more smudges and spots off of your clean guitar.

9. Avoid scratches by buckling your belt on your hip.

Scratches and marks can be common on the back of a guitar's body and most of the time it's do to belt buckle friction when you move around. Another way how to keep a guitar clean without scratches is to buckle your belt on the side of your waist.

10. Practice space is to trashed as guitar is to...?

I don' t know if you've noticed, but when one thing starts becoming messy, it begins to show in other aspects of your life (...*cough cough* guitar cleanliness...). If you're the type that doesn't take care of your practice space, it may show on your guitar. My advice is to start sprucing up one or the other.

These are some fast tips on how to clean your guitar that aren't very hard to do either. Seriously, the worst thing to find out from a music store when you're getting a guitar repaired is that your instrument died because of poor up-keeping.