When you buy an acoustic guitar you tend to be distracted with learning how to play it and you can forget to think about how to take care of it. Here is a quick rundown on how to take care of your acoustic guitar. YOur acoustic guitar is a delicate instrument held together by a balance of tensions coming from different directions and some glue.
When you are sitting playing your guitar you will possibly find in hot weather that you forearm sticks to the front of the guitar. Not only is this awkward when you are trying to play but it could leave a mark in the wood of your guitar. If you do not want to wear a shirt with long sleeves while you play your acoustic guitar, try and put a clean cloth between the body of the guitar and the body of the guitarist.
Although you may be sorely tempted, do not polish your acoustic guitar. A lot of guitars have a very thin finish and will not take any kind of polish that contains abrasive materials. Also if your polish is the white kind it could get into the cracks in the wood and draw attention to them.
If you use a wax polish ti could form a thick layer over the wood in a short time. It is very tedious and in the long run, futile to be polishing a layer of wax instead of the actual wood. Try to avoid this. If you use an oil base polish it will tend to darken the wood of your guitar. The use of an oily polish could ultimately lead to the guitar developing cracks.
The grease from your fingers gets transferred to the guitar strings so part of taking care of your acoustic guitar involves wiping the strings and the body of the guitar with a lint-free cloth. Make sure it's clean.
Many guitarists will recommend applying lemon oil to the ebony fingerboard of your guitar. The truth is that once it has left the factory the fingerboard is in as good a shape as it is going to get and no amount of lemon oil is going to improve it, even though it does give it a nice sheen for about thirty seconds after you put it on.
So you see that you don't really need to know much to know how to take care of your acoustic guitar but you do need to care a lot. |
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