Soaking Spirocores in alcohol to clean?

[Martin Beer]

After a very brief experiment with gut (couldn't live with the arco sound!), I'm back with my Spiro mittels. My bass is an old German shop bass and fairly dark sounding, so I find the brightness of new Spirocores pretty agreeable on this bass. I have a played-in set on the bass and another used set in a drawer. A lot of people over on the slab side are soaking their strings in alcohol to restore some of the brightness. Has anyone tried this with Spiros? Any ill effects? I can't really spring for a new set at the moment, so it might be worth a shot if it works.

[Jake deVilliers]

No need to drown them in it. Just saturate the corner of a piece of toweling with isopropyl alcohol, squeeze the string with it and slide it up and down. It usually does a nice job of refreshing the strings.

[damonsmith]

I do it every few days. Gets the rosin and sweat off. Boiling them can work, I just boiled my solos a month or so ago and it has brightened them up a lot.

[JtheJazzMan]

Leave them in a sealed container fully submerged in methylated spirits for a few days, it does far more than a wipe down can.

[bejoyous]

An easy way to do a deep clean is to loosen a string just enough so you can bend it in an "S" curve around your finger and thumb. I use Methyl Hydrate and a terry facecloth.

Soak a small circle on the cloth and run it up and down the string until the black gunk stops coming out. Bend the string into an "S" so the windings separate a bit and the MH gets to the dirt in between the windings. This dirt is what causes the string to wear out.

Tighten the string and go on to the next one.

This really freshens the sound and playability of the string.

The heat from boiling in water sure cleans them out, but the different metals have different expansion rates and shortens the life of the string.

I use MH to clean the fingerboard as well. You might want to use rubber or nitrile gloves if you are sensitive to chemicals

[GemStone]

Alcohol have a lot of water content. Methyl hydrate is better I think to soak them into for a good clean.

[oldfretless]

Just be cautious as there can be components in these that are absorbed through the skin, and attack the central nervous system. If there is a reference to a MSDS, it's evil. Wear gloves if unsure.