General Cleaning Of A Bass

I sweat a bit too and I swear by PowerChord finish protector. It goes on easy (I find a microfiber cloth works best) and leaves a great shine as well as a protectant coat.

I recently placed an order for some with with http://www.luthiermusic.com

 

I've heard that microfibers are a bit risky as they do have some degree of abrasiveness and can start to swirl up thinner types of clearcoat. I use them on my Ric, but that finish is more like a cars than like a typical guitar finish. MAybe microfiber is a bad idea for Nitro?

 

+1 for the mircofiber cloths! If you have "Dollar Tree" dollar stores by you they nice ones there so you can buy in bulk, lol.

The only thing better that I can think of is called "The Absorber". It's a synthetic car shammy (sp?) that can be picked up at almost every auto parts store. About 15 dollars, but mine has lasted for the last 7 or 8 years with virtually no wear.

The nice thing about it is there's no fibers or grain to the material, so no scratches or swirls. It's very bizzar...if you've ever been to a watershow and got to pet a dolphin or seal it feels just like their skin.

 

Possibly, but a lot less abrasiveness than your standard yellow duster! I used MF cloths for 10 years now and none of my basses are approaching a relic yet!
I am also using them with product not rubbing the surface with the cloth itself.

Worth noting that there are a lot of different grades of Microfiber. I use the ones by Planet Waves for guitar finishes (or so they claim). As with anything, used incorrectly and you could have problems!

 

Understood. Technically speaking any cloth is going to have some amount of abrasiveness or it would be useless. If your hitting your Ritters with them I am going to say they are probably fine for my MIM Jazz

 

It's chamois, not shammy.

 

Orpheus, your English teacher is showing.

 

You've got to thank the folks at Shamwow for that one!

 

I use the clothes they give/sell with glasses best thing compared to anything i tryed.

 

your glasses came with clothes? I would assume that you bought some frames from a designer like Ralph Lauren. I am not sure I would want to wear a pair of Ray-Ban jeans.

 

The Planet Waves clothes are very similar, just a lot bigger in size and therefore a lot easier to use.

 

I use Martin guitar polish and a standard Fender polish cloth.

 

Well i can either use the small glasses piece of cloth, or buy something i dont really need therefor having less GAS money

 

You have a tendency to make fun of me

kidding

 

Microfiber is even recommended for camera lenses, so I don't think you need to worry about it on a bass.

I used good ol' Lemon Pledge for cleaning and shining and a good polymer auto polish for real polishing. I got a small 5" auto buffer and use it with MF pads once in a while with a very fine (3M) paint buffing compound before the polymer polish. Takes out all minor scratches, etc. and the finish is like glass. It is the first thing I do when I buy a bass - new or used.

 

Is yours a power buffer? Or did you just mean a buffing pad?

I'd love to hit all of my basses with one of those to really let 'em shine.

 

And bizarre, not bizzar!

I've used Meguiar's Liquid Wax on my basses with no problems at all. Lemon oil on the fretboard.

 

Concerning deep cleaning, for unfinished fretboard's I use Howard Orange Oil for cleaning, followed by Howard Feed 'N' Wax. These are very light applications of both products. For my USA Joe Osborn which has a Poly finish on the body/headstock I use Novus plastic cleaner. I haven't had to clean the back of the neck (Tru-Oiled at Lakland), but do apply a light coat of Butchers Bowling Alley Wax followed by a 0000 light steel wool rub.
For a general wipe after practicing, I use old soft yellow guitar cloths that have been purposely laundered many times to remove whatever cleaner/polish they were treated with originally.

 

For my semi-annual cleaning I use naphtha (lighter fluid), an old tshirt followed by lemon oil on the 'board, n' bobs ur uncle.