Anybody make thier own Guitar Polish?

[voodoochild]

If so then how? I have tried a small amount of liquid detergent with water and it cleans well but doesn't sheen like other polishes do. Any Ideas? I forgot to mention a wax free formula.

[jrfrond]

There are silicone-based polishes, but you can really only use them on synthetic finishes, not on nitro. These are wax-free.

[David Schwab]

You don't ever want to use a silicone based polish. If you ever have to refinish, or touch up the finish you are in for a big heap-o-trouble!

Silicone will cause a lot of fish eyes and other misery.

Polishes specifically made for guitars don't (or shouldn't) have silicone in them.

Wax isn't such a problem as it's easy to de-wax something.

[jrfrond]

David is right: silicone is almost impossible to get rid of and makes touchup a nightmare, BUT.....if you have a" poly-monster" finish, nothing beats it for gloss, feel and dust/fingerprint resistance.

[David Schwab]

David is right: silicone is almost impossible to get rid of and makes touchup a nightmare, BUT.....if you have a" poly-monster" finish, nothing beats it for gloss, feel and dust/fingerprint resistance.

Yeah, you aren't going to get those finishes off easy anyway! Remember the fullerplast stuff Fender used to use?

Superglue is about the best thing to touch up poly finishes.

If you aren't worried about silicone, just use some commercial furniture polish. I use that stuff on my personal basses finished with catalyzed nitro lacquer.

[DMW]

I like a polish branded as Milsek. It is a good general cleaner, too, and is a mild polish. No silicone in this.

I also like Keyser's "Stringfellow" polish. No silicone in this one, either. I agree totally with with comments about silicone. Years ago I was ignorant about silicone and used Finger Ease on a guitar for years. I don't know what's in that stuff now, but Finger Ease was loaded with silicone back then. Naturally my guitar became loaded with silicone after spraying this crazy stuff out of an aerosol bottle for years.

I tried the Dunlop cleaner/polish but it made my arm break out in hives after resting it against the guitar top. My wife looked at the ingredients and said, "Get rid of this polish and their wax,too, as it has some harsh, toxic ingredients in it." So I tossed them.

[Steve A.]

I like a polish branded as Milsek. It is a good general cleaner, too, and is a mild polish. No silicone in this.

I also like Keyser's "Stringfellow" polish. No silicone in this one, either. I agree totally with with comments about silicone. Years ago I was ignorant about silicone and used Finger Ease on a guitar for years. I don't know what's in that stuff now, but Finger Ease was loaded with silicone back then. Naturally my guitar became loaded with silicone after spraying this crazy stuff out of an aerosol bottle for years.

I tried the Dunlop cleaner/polish but it made my arm break out in hives after resting it against the guitar top. My wife looked at the ingredients and said, "Get rid of this polish and their wax,too, as it has some harsh, toxic ingredients in it." So I tossed them.

Here is a link to the Milsek site:

http://www.milsek.com/

I just picked up a bottle at Long's Drugs and it seems to be a bit oily for a guitar polish, so give it time to dry out a bit (I would not apply it immediately before a gig as I might have done with the toxic Dunlop cleaners- fortunately I misplaced my bottle so I have not used that sh*t for quite awhile).

So how about mixing in just a little bit of boiled linseed oil to thicken it up a bit- any suggestions on that? I used to use a 50-50% mixture of lemon oil and boiled linseed oil on my fretboards after giving them a good scrubbing, but I figured out that if I washed my hands first my guitar stayed a lot cleaner...

Thanks for the tip!

Steve Ahola

P.S. They also sell a version of their cleaner with Orange Oil instead of Lemon Oil but they did not have that in the store.

EDIT I was thinking of just having one guitar rag pre-soaked with the Milsek stuff, but would that be like an oily rag which could catch fire?

Also I've been using the GHS Fast Fret treatment on my strings- this has the wooden handle with the cotton soaked with a waxy substance. I've wore it down to maybe 3/4" and it seems to leave more cotton puffs than anything else on my strings... is it time to replace it with a new one? There seems to be some of that waxy substance left in the cotton fibers but not as much as when it was brand new...