Smelly Paul

[J M Fahey]

To wipe the guitar with or to cover your own nose while playing?

[JHow]

I wouldn't go out of my way to buy one just for one smelly guitar, but if you have an ozone generator, maybe keeping the guitar in a room with that will help.

My wife got one a few years ago and used to run it in a damp room in our old place. When we moved, she wasn't using it, so I moved it to the garage. I believe it helped a particularly stinky amplifier I have. I kept it in the room with the generator for a few months and it is either removing the stink from the amp or removing the stink from the air so I smell it less.

[jmaf]

There are kinds of wood that stink naturally. If that is the case, there is nothing you can do that I know of. Just like pine resin has a great smell that'll last a lifetime, so will the resin on stinky wood.

If the smell is from smoke, drinks and other accidents of the night, you should be able to remove it from the guitar case(not the guitar) by using a "vaporetto" hot water pressure blower, like they clean sofas and carpeting. If they can remove the smell of dog hair(and worse) then they can remove anything. The case padding may lose some material from it though. After the cleanup, a good drying time at the sun should finish the job, they're normally black so it'll get really hot out there on the sun, make sure plastic parts don't start to warp because of the heat.

About the guitar, IMO what jrfrond said: a complete disassembly and cleanup part by part.

[d. spree]

I had the exact same problem with a Fender Strat I bought off of ebay. The thing stank of smoke. I couldn't figure out if the smell was from incredibly heavy smoking or if it had survved a fire of some kind. The case had a very fine layer of greyish dust on the outside. Here's what I did and it has fixed the problem - it took some weeks. 1. The case really stank but was good quality so I didn't want to ditch it. I separated it from the guitar and washed the outside. I gave it a spray of febreze on the inside cloth every few days and left it open and airing with lots of fresh air.
2. I cleaned the guitar using naptha and then with a damp cloth with very mildly soapy water (detergent) as it was very dirty. Scrubbed and rubbed the fretboard with damp soft cloth. Smell left the guitar quickly, within abuit 3 days - the case took months. Played her yesterday and she sounded and smelled sweet!