• Notice regarding image hosts and attachments. See here.

Guitar Cleaning

LOAM

LOAM

LOAM

Soldato
Joined
20 Oct 2004
Posts
13,255
Location
Nottingham
Having been home for xmas I have located and rescued my Charvel (model 375 deluxe 1989 /1990) electric guitar but its in need of a bit of TLC having been living in a loft for several years :mad: . I have also brought back my Marshall amp (model 5010 SS, valveless) which is also slightly worse for wear and not working but cleaning that wont help so its off in to the music inn, Nottingham for repair.

My questions to you good fellows are thus;

1. What am I safe to clean it with?

2. It has a Floyd Rose trem on it and a few of the saddle bolts, intonation bolts as well as the string holding bolts at the top of the neck (not the machine heads) are slightly pitted and rusted, is there anything I can do to clean them or is it a case of replacing them.

3. If I were to strip it down completely, including the Floyd rose, how easy is it to set up the intonation again from scratch ?

4. It was a white guitar but it has yellowed. I gather this is due to a breakdown of the chemicals within the lacquer but wonder if there is anything that could be done to restore it ?


Many thanks in advance.
 
Last edited:
I'm no guitar expert (though I do own a few), but I would have thought the first thing to do is just give it a quick clean and leave it alone for a few weeks at normal room temperature. After living rough in a loft the woodwork's probably going to take a while to settle down again.
 
Sorry should have added, its been out of the loft now for about 14 days (parents retrieved it mid dec)
 
well, stripped the whole trem down and cleaned it with WD40 and re-assembled it. Rest of the body and fret board has had the once over with some lemon juice and warm water. Can not believe how much better it looks.

Restrung with some Super Slinky Ernie Balls and tuned. Its slightly off on the intonation but tbh as I am not ever going to be gigging with it sorting that out is a back burner job.

So nice to have it back though, its been about 15 years since I picked it up.
 
Pics!!!

Lemon oil the dark woods. House polish and elbow grease is fine for the body. WD40 the metal parts. Seems like you've got that far already.

Switch cleaner in the pot's and switches. Re-solder if necessary. Re-string. Set the Floyd up (action, intonation, float) and also the truss rod. Leave for two or three weeks to settle down with string tension. It will have changed set-up again due to the string tension and you will have to set it up again and it should've settled by then for the next few years!
 
G1.jpg


G2.jpg


Its a little bit "80's metal" for my liking :P but its such a lovely guitar to play.
 
I had the exact same guitar but sold it a year ago.. wish I'd kept it now..

If you decide to sell it i would be interested in taking it off your hands.
 
I'm currently trying to talk myself out of being stupid and buying a Gibson Les Paul studio. It's either that or a new graphics card...

DM, I think they are more or less the same guitars to be honest.
 
The Les Paul will hold its dough, The GFX card will only lose you dough. Having said that I don't like them they are to small & to heavy. :p I dig the sound of course it just doesn't suit me or my hands/fingers/back.
 
My first guitar was an epiphone LP that I sold to buy the charvel. I always regretted doing that.
 
They're the same company under different names, like Gibson, epiphone and Orville. So they will often share parts, my charvel has Jackson pickups.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom