Denatured Alcohol does indeed work!

[Stinsok]

I had a rat's nest of old strings in a box. I thought, "that's a lot of money sitting there!" I pulled out a dead set, soaked them in the alcohol for awhile, and presto! I wouldn't go as far as saying they sound like new, but maybe it brought them back to 75% new? To me, they sound like a set that has just been broken in.

[OshKoshJoash]

how long did you soak em for?

i did mine overnight, and they came out sounding brand new!

[Stinsok]

Couple of hours..

[PilbaraBass]

I have 5 basses and only 1 ever sees new strings.

Two basses have nylon-wrapped strings (one set is 9 years old, the other 5). Another bass has a 15 year-old set of half-rounds. Another bass gets alcohol-cleaned Nickel roundwounds, and my main bass gets a new set of nickel roundwounds 1 to 2 times a year (with a couple of alcohol cleans along the way).

My experience is that alcohol-cleaned strings don't sound as bright or vibrant as new strings, but like Stinsok says "like a broken in set".

Just for interest, in Australia "denatured alcohol" is referred to as "methylated spirits"...

basically ethylene (grain alcohol) is poisoned with wood alcohol (methylene), such that it becomes a poisonous chemical and hence not subject to regulation by Food and Alcohol folks.

[62bass]

I've done this a few times with methyl hydrate as it's sold in Canda for use as a shellac thinner. Put the strings in a Tupperware container and left them to soak overnight.

It does work to restore some brightness (on roundwounds at least). Some of the increased brightness may come from just removing and replacing the strings though. The gains are pretty short lived.

These days I play mostly T.I. flats and no longer bother with that. I wipe them down with a cloth (when I remember) and every once in a while give them a rub with some Finger Ease. The Finger Ease seems to restore a bit of brightness on roundwound strings. Nothing noticeable on the flats, but it does make them pretty slick. Some guys hate that. I like it.