GENERAL GUITAR CLEANING

We kick off the course with a introductory chat about the different types of finish there are out there. The finish of your guitar will determine how you clean it, so it is important to identify yours.

Summary: Different finishes

The main two types of finish on guitars are Polyurethane (poly) and Nitrocellulose (nitro). These two types of finish need to be treated and looked after differently, so you first need to recognise which finish you have. You can further expand the list by bringing in vintage instruments. Even though these will very likely be nitro finishes, you need to take extra care with certain problems that arise over time. We will cover how to clean all of these finishes separately, including acoustic finishes, but first let's work out which finish you have!

Poly finish

Poly finishes are typically quite thick and high-gloss. You usually won't see any wood grain (with sunburst being a notable exception) and the finish wears very differently to nitro finishes. If a poly finish damages, you will often see cracks in the finish revealing the wood, rather than a gradually wear and faded look of the nitro finishes. If you have a Fender style guitar you are very likely to have a poly finish.

Nitro finish

Nitro finishes are far more subtle and thin than poly finishes. You will often be able to see the grain in the wood and the big difference is how they wear. Nitro guitars will gradually wear down to the wood giving you that classic beaten up look on your guitars (all relic guitars have a nitro finish).

As a final note, just remember that if you have a vintage or acoustic instrument we will be looking at those separately as they will be treated a little differently.

Ready to move on? Remember to check out every lesson in this unit first – then try the next unit...

Poly Finish Cleaning

Let's now get down to the actual task of cleaning some guitars! We start in this demonstration with a cool poly finished white Fender Stratocaster. James and Chris take you through the dos and don'ts of cleaning this style of finish.