Furniture cleaning spray - good or bad for guitars ??

[RDV]

I like to keep a good, thick coating of skin-dirt-sweat-beer-nicotine-cheap cologne/perfume all over my guitars at all times. No, I'm not kidding.

Regards

RDV

[Robin]

I like to keep a good, thick coating of skin-dirt-sweat-beer-nicotine-cheap cologne/perfume all over my guitars at all times. No, I'm not kidding.

Regards

RDV

Hey, hey. Me too, except for those annoying semi-annual guilt trip visits from mssrs. Martin and Gibson. Actually, it's kind of amazing that there is so much misinformation on this subject. Think about it --- short of the need for refinishing one wants only to restore the instrument's finish, be it nitrocellulose (laquer), polyester, shellac, epoxy, tung oil or whatever. The trick is to remove the crud without screwing up the finish and leave no residue. Ok, this gets down to solvents and their realitive reaction to the finish you're dealing with. Water is the universal solvent but can cause rust, white clouding, damage to raw wood, etc.. Alcohol is a good cleaner but will disolve shellac and some oil finishes and dry out raw wood. Petrol distillalte products are rated by solvency. Aggressive ones like actone and ketone are will strip most anything, including most finishes. At the other end of the solvency scale are paint thinners, and naptha --- luthiers often use naptha as a cleaning agent --- but they'll strip an oil finish. Organic solvents like turpentine can leave a residue. And if the finish needs more than a cleaning will wax and oil based polishes turn into a gummy mess when I'm playing hard?
  The safest route is to use proprietary "guitar cleaner/polishes" which contain no wax or oils and leave no residue on the body and fretboard cleaner and oil on the fretboard. A decent luthier shop will buff out a "weather beaten" finish cheap if you don't want to learn how to do it yourself. This is much better that applying that super-hard-polymerized-mirror-gloss crap in a can.
IMHO

Rob
RDV[/quote]

[RDV]

Hey, hey. Me too, except for those annoying semi-annual guilt trip visits from mssrs. Martin and Gibson.

Dude; you gotta stay away from that Ouija board!!  :wink:

I see Mssr's Martin & Gibson, I'm leavin'!

RDV