Here’s how GuitarTek by StewMac’s new cleaners make pro-level guitar care easier than ever
The importance of proper guitar maintenance can’t really be overstated. If you’ve ever found your guitar drifting in and out of tuning, or breaking strings every time you bend enthusiastically, you’ll have found this out the hard way. But alongside mechanical and electrical maintenance, keeping your guitar clean and polished, and its fretboard oiled, is essential to ensuring it looks, feels and plays its best.
Guitars are in contact with a lot of stuff all the time, particularly human bodies. Playing for two hours before chucking your guitar straight back into its case, covered in sweat, finger grime, beer and decades-old venue dust is less than ideal. We perhaps don’t pay as much attention to this aspect of guitar maintenance as we should – maybe because things like broken tuners and dodgy output jacks are far more immediate in how they affect things.
However, polishing, cleaning and condition are no less important! On a surface level – quite literally – it just doesn’t look or feel particularly great. But more crucially, not cleaning your guitar can actually lead to corrosion damaging your finish, hardware and frets over time. And not oiling your board can make it more prone to damage, and susceptible to moisture-based cracking.
For decades guitarists have been wiping their instruments down with one-size-fits-all cleaners. But not all surfaces are the same – and many cleaning products can contain silicone or petroleum, which can damage more delicate nitrocellulose finishes, and irritate your skin as you clean.
This is where StewMac’s new GuitarTek line of guitar care products comes in. The brand has been a leader for a while when it comes to the wider world of maintenance and modding – and has brought its experience in keeping guitars performing their best to three new core cleaning products.
The line consists of the Gloss Max high-shine polish, the Clean Axe total care cleaner, and the Board Oil fretboard cleaner and conditioner. Each product is engineered to perform its best in different applications, depending on what your guitar’s finish needs – and has been made from the ground-up with guitars in mind. Let’s explore what makes this new range of care products a game-changer when it comes to making pro-level instrument polishing, cleaning and conditioning easy and accessible.
Gloss Max
Gloss Max is a high-shine polish designed specifically for glossy finishes. If you’ve got a gloss-finished guitar, it can be hard to restore it to a mirror-like shine – particularly if it’s a sensitive lacquer finish. Going at something a little more delicate with a lot of elbow grease can mean you risk damaging your guitar’s look, even taking off a layer of finish depending on what product you use. But the formula of Gloss Max makes it easy for you to get a truly radiant shine on even the most sensitive of lacquers.
Clean Axe
Clean Axe is a super versatile all-in-one cleaning product that’s designed for any finish – gloss, satin and matte included. It’s able to safely remove heavy grime build-ups from your guitar’s body, neck and hardware without you having to resort to an old toothbrush and washing up liquid. It’s available as a spray bottle for easy cleaning, or as very case-friendly wipes – perfect for keeping your guitar in great condition in-between tour stops!
And as it’s designed to work with all kinds of finishes, satin and matte included, Clean Axe won’t lead to you accidentally polishing in shiny spots into your nice tasteful finish. Similarly it won’t leave a dull residue on glossy finishes, as some cleaners can be tricky to fully get rid of once you’ve applied them.
Board Oil
We all love a good open-pore fretboard, however it’s super important to keep a board like this clean and conditioned. GuitarTek’s board oil both cleans finger grease and sweat away, and at the same time hydrates and conditions dry wood – and to make things easier, it comes in a new applicator formula with a thin edge, perfect for actually fitting between frets, particularly in the upper registers.
Pro-level care matters
A broken guitar is one thing – but it’s perhaps worse to accidentally damage your prized instrument with incorrect care, and it’s even worse to be too anxious that a cleaner might affect your finish, and to leave it to sweat, dirt and dryness to do the damage instead. GuitarTek’s new line of cleaners make keeping your instrument in great condition easier and safer than ever.
Each product is formulated with Amazonian Rosewood oil and is free of harmful silicone and petroleum – this is great news for your guitar, and for your hands. If you have sensitive skin and have spent an afternoon spraying and wiping down your guitars, you’ll know that guitar cleaners aren’t often particularly friendly to your skin – but the whole GuitarTek range has been dermatologically tested to be as kind to you as to your guitar.
If you’ve been grabbing a one-size fits all cleaner for your whole guitar collection up until now – or worse, chucking your sweat-covered guitar back in its case after every gig without giving it the TLC it needs – it might be time to check out GuitarTek’s new range.
Find out more at StewMac.com.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
