How Anal Are You About Your Guitar? Options

[David.C.Bond]

So, are you obsessive about you axe? Discuss!

[Bogdan Radovic]

I don't actually take care of it much...I rarely clean it, I change strings when they loose sound I'm looking for,..But I do carry it in hardshell case..I have many bumps on it , on my beautiful tiger eye quilt top but what can I do man , guitar is meant to be used ..

[Xranthoius]

Well, i change strings when they need it and i polish it every week or two

[mattacuk]

Strings when they snap, or when they just sound really bad. And I polish it when its REALLY bad!

[VinceG]

Well I sometimes get anal about my guitar. Just a month ago, I bought some cleaning supplies: polished, waxed and re-string both my guitars. It rarely happens but I actually enjoy doing it especially if there dirty and full of finger marks.

This post has been edited by VinceG: Dec 8 2007, 06:35 PM

[Owen]

Strings, when they snap or every year whether they need it or not.

Guitar, it tends to get accidentally knocked about a bit, I bash the headstock off doors etc etc stand breaks, blah blah, got a fair few dents, had to choose the fourth option for honesty.

[FretDancer69]

Strings when they snap, or when they just sound really bad. And I polish it when its REALLY bad!

yeah same here

[mattacuk]

yeah same here

LIke with the guitar magazines, I always think if I have enough time to be cleaning my guitar I could be pracicing a cool lick or two !

[FretDancer69]

LIke with the guitar magazines, I always think if I have enough time to be cleaning my guitar I could be pracicing a cool lick or two !

great minds think alike...

[Chris Evans]

change the strings depending on how they are starting to sound 3-5 weeks, and give the guitar a polish when I change them.

[Davidian]

I haven't got enough money to change my strings every week ! Not that I would do it if I had the money
I only polish my guitar when I have to take a picture for somebody, so the polish I bought is still 3/4 full, that says enough ...

This post has been edited by Davidian: Dec 8 2007, 07:46 PM

[ClifordACDC]

i usualy change the strings after about a month, and i usualy put some fretboard conditioner on during string changes. i dont realy polish my guitar because the polish i have is horrible and actualy makes my guitar look worse .

This post has been edited by ClifordACDC: Dec 8 2007, 07:57 PM

[rokchik]

I change the strings when I feel they need to be changed or they break. When I do change them I clean/polish my guitar. However after every use I do wipe off all finger prints/smudges just so there is not a lot of build up.

[Pavel]

I was really obsessed with cleaning and stuff half a year ago. Now i don't care too much. I clean it every time before playing not to have dust on guitar and fretboard and i change strings when i feel i need to do it because of tuning issues.

[fkalich]

I used to be obsessive years ago. But I got over it. I did not do pathetic things like wash my hands constantly or change my underwear 10 times a day, but I was a perfectionist in a non productive way.

Today I am not that way at all. Well when I started up guitar over a year ago, I immediately bought 7, 4 Gibsons and 3 Fenders. But since then have not given it a thought, don't care about Ibanez wonder guitars, or strings, or anything like that. I have what I want, and I don't worry about pickups or anything, just my playing. And my practice is not obsessive, it is always done in a productive fashion.

And it is a much better world in my view. It can take years to get over the damage that your parents do to you, with is just about unavoidable, no matter how hard they try to avoid it.

If you are obsessive, it is counter productive. And it takes years to overcome it. You learn to sort of box it off. Such as myself, buying 7 guitars right away. That was it. Instead of obsessing over stuff for years, I just got it all over with in a couple months, and am totally satisfied with what I have. Now I don't give any of that a thought, don't care, I just play, and everything is just fine, don't have to change anything, don't have to mess with anything. I rarely clean a guitar. Unless it gets real dirty, don't care. What is that going to matter when I am 6 feet under?

edit: I do edit things, but not obsessively. I am just particular about my writing. For example typos, misspelling, that makes you look careless or stupid. Or poorly organized thoughts. Or perhaps not expressing yourself as you prefer. That is not obsessive. What would be obsessive would be, for example, if I were to edit this because I put 4 Gibsons and 3 Fenders above, when in fact it is 5 Gibsons and 2 Fenders. That don't mean a rat's ass, so that would be obsessive. But I respect people who put effort into what they write, nothing obsessive about that in my view.

This post has been edited by fkalich: Dec 8 2007, 09:26 PM

[Ivan Milenkovic]

I clean it every time I change the strings - about every 3-4 weeks. I don`t like my guitar looking dirty. I just wipe it with a soft wet cloth - don`t use chemicals (exept fastfret off course)

[Smikey2006]

I polish my guitar once and a while.. i have a fender guitar cloth.. so if its laying around ill give it a polish.. and i always clean the frets when i change strings which is about once every 2 weeks or when they break. Even if i just break a high e i tend to change all of them just for good measure.. keep it constant..

[David.C.Bond]

I'm very obsessive about mine, my girlfriend makes fun of me about it sometimes! I generally change the strings a couple of times a week, and I polish them on saturdays.
I usually play a minimum of 6 hours a day though, so the strings need changing quite frequently.

[Alucard]

Ehh, I change strings about 2-4 weeks, and i polish it every week. What I'm really anal about is scratches and dents, but thankfully my guitar is silver so no worries

[Andrew Cockburn]

A set of strings lasts me a month or so, and I always polish and dust when I change 'em