Will steel wool clean string!?!?!

[nozkcb]

I've no experience doing it but I'd advise against it anyway.

1. You might get little shards of steel stuck in the string, which can cut your fingers.
2. You might get bits of steel stuck to the pickups and lost inside the bass.
3. Steel dust in the pots? Unlikely but a disaster.

Just try boiling them! Or replacing them!

I strongly Second it. Another thing that does work pretty well is to soak the strings in rubbing alcohol or better yet, denatured alcohol. Soak for an hour or so, wipe then down and you're good to go. . . . for a while. Nothing I know of brings them back to full life.

 

[Omnipharious]

Isopropanol has water in it too; the only real effective way to clean, and rejuvenate your strings without detrimental effects to your strings is denatured alcohol.

 

[Meatrus]

Well, "RustyAxe" that's a bad idea. Water and metal never mix. It might make your strings sound better for a day or two, but it can rust them, and make them even worse if you boil them.

You mean it may ruin perfectly good runied strings!? Nooooooo! . Rust shouldnt be a problem with SS strings, people have been doing it (boiling) for years. If you want your strings to last forever it may not be the best idea, but they were never going to do that anyway.

Oh and 0000 steel wool will never cut fingers, pointless using it on strings but not for that reason.

 

[Omnipharious]

You mean it may ruin perfectly good runied strings!? Nooooooo! . Rust shouldnt be a problem with SS strings, people have been doing it (boiling) for years. If you want your strings to last forever it may not be the best idea, but they were never going to do that anyway.

Oh and 0000 steel wool will never cut fingers, pointless using it on strings but not for that reason.

Ooh, and all the times I scold people for not reading the whole OP, and I forget to... Yeah, stainless steel shouldn't have a problem with water, but I still don't boil strings, just out of precaution. Isopropanol works fine for me (just don't leave a bucket of it full of hardware out near the floor if critters frequent where you work, you could find a cute, dead little lizard buddy belly up in it )

 

[Simorchid]

I've always had good results with the water boil method. Boil for about 10 minutes until the dirt comes to the surface and then dry them off with a cloth. They come up almost good as new and stay that way until they get dirty again. With a set of strings I normally clean them this way four times before I buy another pack.