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Get the funk(smell) out

#21
Title of your post made me think of Extreme - Get the Funk Out. Awesome song.

Only recommendation I can offer would be to leave it out of the case for a couple weeks. Also, you could try gettin some Jescar guitar polish. Works really good gettin all kinds of oils and gunk off of finishes. Smells amazing too.
 
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#22
Here is what I've done in the past and it worked well.
Case:
Clean exterior with a cleaner like Windex (the ammonia in it helps kill odors). Vacuum interior and spray with Fabreeze and leave open outside in sunlight for a day or 2. This has worked for me with foul smells and even cigarette smoke.

Bass:
Remove and discard strings and clean the entire bass with a cleaner like Windex. Then you can polish any painted parts and treat the fretboard. I've use orange oil on both rosewood and ebony boards. It worked great and smelled good too.
 
#24
T_Bone_TL said:
Best one - take the case outside, burn / dump in trash, get new case.

Remove strings (I'd suggest new ones as the funk will be trapped deep in the windings, and being me, I'd suggest tapewounds) and completely clean the bass, leaving it outside in the sunshine whenever possible. Do not associate it with a case until it and the case are both dog-stench free. Take some lemon oil to the fretboard, you'll be amazed at how much crud comes off most basses - it's much easier to do a good job with the strings off. What you clean the rest of the bass with depends a lot on what the bass is finished with - typical polyurethane finish is tough, so most household cleaners are fine, nitrocellulose is fussier and someone other than me could better advise about that.

Down several notches - place open case outside in the sunshine. Vacuum the heck out of it, dump in a pound of cheap ground coffee, close it, shake the case all around, leave it for several days, vacuum the heck out of it, leave it in the sun some more. Bring in, put a large amount of of baking soda in a shallow open box or on a sheet of newspaper (you want maximum exposure, not just ripping the top off the box it comes in) close and leave for a few days, open and dump the baking soda, case back in the sunshine. Baking soda is more prone (than coffee grounds) to get stuck and be hard to vacuum out if in direct contact with the "case fur."

Try some "pet odor eliminator" spray from a pet store or the pet aisle of a box store.

Still bad, move to cedar shavings, or rent a steam cleaner with a hose/small head intended for doing furniture (rather than just being set up for floors) and do that early in the morning on a day when you can set it out to dry.
Click to expand...

That was a thorough recipe for deep cleaning. Maybe you could change your avatar to "Mr. Clean"? :smug:
 
#26
Unless you know somebody in the business, it's not free, but it will work guaranteed. Find somebody in the remediation business (the people that go in and do restoration after fires and floods). They should have a machine that will eliminate ANY odor. I honestly can't remember the name, but I'm thinking they called it an ozone machine. I had a friend that bought some guitars from a store that caught fire...they reaked. He found somebody with one of these machines and it completely removed the odor.
 
#27
Cases?....WD 40 and sunlight. Vacuum well to get any dampness out of the case. Then more sunlight. Basses?...Lemon Pledge and fresh air. To keep any mildew smell out of cases and off guitars , I stick a couple of Desiccant Silica Gell packs in each one. WD40 also works great to get any mildew off of the outside of cases and speaker cabs. I've also used it to clean up a couple of riding leather jackets that got gunked up sitting over the winter.
 
#29
Hiking Viking said:
As I am new to playing bass at the tender age of 53, I'm going to probably be asking this group a lot of really stupid questions so..
I bought a bass from Craigslist, the the guy had two old German Shepherds so the house smelled like dog. didn't think much of it . But when I got home it smelled like the dog had been living in the guitar case with the bass I mean it was really strong. any suggestions on how to remove this smell from the guitar and the case?
Thank you
Click to expand...
Polish up the Bass buy a new case!
 
#32
two fingers said:
Welcome to TalkBass!!!!

Nothing..... and I mean NOTHING has ever worked better than sunlight and fresh air for getting smells out of bass gear, in my view. I did a zillion gigs back in the days of smoky bars. I tried everything to get smoke smells out of my cases and basses. Then someone told me to set them outside. It took a few days, but it did the trick.

Over the years I figured out some tips.

When it comes to the case, set that sucker out in the high noon sun. That UV light will kill the smell in a matter of two or three times of setting it out. In my experience, it actually makes the smell WORSE the first time. It somehow stirs the smell up. But the second and third times it goes away. I have a screened in back porch. So I'll usually set mine out in the sun during the heat of the day, and then put it on that porch (open) overnight.

When it comes to the bass, I would pop a wall hanger in the side of a tree trunk in your yard if you have any. I do mine facing the setting sun. That way the bass isn't getting high noon sun and possibly messing with the finish. I will set the bass outside in the shade even in the middle of the day. But then I'll hang it on that hanger closer to sunset. I have even turned the bass with the back facing the sun a couple of times. Again, after a few times setting it out, the smell should be completely gone.

No tricks. No chemicals. Just good ole' sunlight.... and a little bit of time.
Click to expand...

When I was boxing, I did that with my stinky gloves, and it worked like a charm. I +1 this post.
 
#33
Think you got problems? I once worked for a Grammy-winning artist who was a dog lover, and I do mean a dog lover. They were not the best housekeepers, though, and often, their custom-tailored stage clothes would lay on a bed or couch for a day or two before it was time to go to the bus, and their dog(s) thought they were just wonderful to lay on. . . . .

After the gigs, they'd be signing autographs, and I'd see civilians step up to them when it was their turn, get this look on their face 9'they were thinking, 'wazzat funny smell . . . .') and often lean in and pick something off their clothes . . . . . . which it later dawned on me was dog hair. They often complained just how much their %&$*%& dry-cleaner was charging them . . . . .
 
#35
Hiking Viking said:
As I am new to playing bass at the tender age of 53, I'm going to probably be asking this group a lot of really stupid questions so..
I bought a bass from Craigslist, the the guy had two old German Shepherds so the house smelled like dog. didn't think much of it . But when I got home it smelled like the dog had been living in the guitar case with the bass I mean it was really strong. any suggestions on how to remove this smell from the guitar and the case?
Thank you
Click to expand...
Fabric freshener
 
#36
Hello, If you go online to any HVAC/DUCT Cleaning outfit you can purchase an enzyme spray that will usually permanently rid the case of the oder.

I used to clean HVAC and any other duct work in ships, military, State Run etc and there are several companies that sell the spray. Different names same enzymes. I used the spray from a company in Texas called Roto-Brush.
 
#37
As long as the dogs didn't piss in it, I have the following to offer... Worked for me....

I bought an old custom built guitar with a nice road case that had been under a bud's bed for a couple of decades or more... It smelled like musky whale poopie and the foam had deteriorated in areas.... Kept the guitar out for days while working on it. Over a couple of weeks out of the case and hanging on a Herc in my den (and cleaning), the guitar funk went away...

I refoamed the case bottom and reused the original fabric.

I Fabreezed hell out of the case fabric, top and bottom, and left open to dry.... Repeated a couple of times over several days... I then took ground coffee, coffee filters, and zip ties. Put a 'bag' in the junk compartment and one in the body area and closed it up for a few days...repeat once..... Smells fine now... Coffee grounds (NOT used grounds) will absorb moisture and odor... Worked great for me....
 
#39
I have used one of these in a stinky car before. My dad sold me a car for our kid to use and it had 12 years of "grandpa smell" in it. My understanding is that car dealers use this kind of stuff all the time for getting smells out of used cars after a normal detailing, it seeps into all of the venting etc... Worked really well on grandpas car. Sometimes called a "odor bomb", as you pull the plug, set it on the seat and close the door while it fogs the cabin for a few hours.
It would be too strong to put in a plastic bag with just the case, but you could put the open case in your car, start the fog and get a fresh car and case at the same time.
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