Best Guitar Care Products
I get asked about this all the time… What’s the best guitar polish? Who makes the best fret board oil? Well, after 30 some odd years of building, setting up and playing guitars, I’m going to let some little secrets out…
Guitar Cleaners and Polish Reviews
Good: Dunlop 65 Guitar Polish
Dunlop 65 is decent stuff. It cleans better than it polishes but the shine isn’t so bad… It works well on Gloss, and Satin Polly or Nitro finishes and is fairly durable.
The best qualitys of this product is that it’s quick, easy to use and it smells nice. For lifting grimy fingerprint your friends leave all over your ax, it gets an A and for shine it gets a solid C+ This $h1t is expensive though and if you own ten or twelve guitars it can get out of hand.
Better: Fender Guitar Polish
Fender Guitar Polish is decent stuff as well… Unlike the Dunlop 65 it polishes better than it cleans. It works best on Gloss, Polly or Nitro finishes and works fairly well on Satin finishes but will shine them out a bit. It is quite durable. The only real problem with Fender Guitar Polish is that it smells like hell and your significant other is guaranteed to complain if you go spraying it in the house… Really it smells nasty. It gets an A+ for shine a B for cleaning and an F for nasty smelling… And oh… It’s not cheap either.
The Best: Turtle Wax Ice
No really… For Nitro or Poly gloss finishes this is it… Now if you want to convert your satin finish to a gloss this will do that too. It pulls the mung right off your guitar and leaves it smooth as glass for ever A+ for clean A+ for shine. The initial investment is a little stiff, but a tub of this stuff will last you for a real long time.
Cleaning Polishing Cloth
Good: 100% Cotton Polish Cloth
The problem with most of the polishing cloth is that they usually are not truly 100% cotton. Most have either a polyester thread in the seam/edge stitching or they have polyester or nylon in the body of the cloth. It is tough to find pure cotton cloth.
Best: 3m Microfiber Polishing Cloth
Honestly I prefer 100% Cotton but then I also think straight into an old tube amp is the way to go… Some new technology is damn good even if it makes me feel icky when I touch it. Synthetic microfiber polishing cloth is the way to go.
Fretboard Oil / Conditioners
Good Enough: Dunlop 65 Fretboard
Lemon Oil works best for cleaning and conditioning… All the hype about other oils is just that, hype… For cleaning and protecting Rosewood or Ebony fret boards this is the stuff. Easy to use not all that nasty to huff and gets the job done. Lemon oil cleans very well and soaks in to a dry fret board quickly to preserve and beautify the wood.
Best: A bigger bottle of Lemon Oil Any quality Lemon oil furniture polish will do here.
Nut Lubrication
Best: A #2 Pencil
Nothing is easier or works better than a #2 pencil for lubricating the nut on a guitar. When you change your strings just scribble a bit in the grove and your’e ready to go.
If you don’t like the black I suppose you can spend your money on Nut Sauce but whatever.
Just taking up some space:
Disclaimer: This article is only my opinion based on my own experience… Chances are more people would disagree than agree with me on these recommendations.