cleaning

[Keith Miller]

Have just bought an old bowl back in dire need of cleaning, what would be the best thing to get ingrained dirt from the top, the back came up well with just wax polish but am worried I might just coat the dirt on the front, any suggestions welcome
Thanks
Keith

[sunburst]

I always try warm water first, then, if that doesn't get all the dirt, warm water with a tiny drop of detergent, then, if that doesn't get all the dirt, naptha. If that doesn't do it, physical cleaning.

[Paul Hostetter]

I use a household surfactant cleaner such as 409, Simple Green, etc. It's completely harmless and really gets the crud off quick - and quick is what you want. As with anything resembling water, you want to do the procedure quickly and then dry it manually real well, so you don't let water (or the cleaner, which is mostly water) soak into seams and so on.

Naphtha is a separate cleaning agent which works great for petroleum-based goo: tape stickum, encrustations of wax, earlier ill-considered "cleaners" and "polishes" such as Fiddlebright and most commercial instrument polishes, and so on. I would follow naphtha course, if it's called for, with the water-based cleaner. This will get the last traces of the petroleum based stuff off the finish.

My final line of defense is mechanical removal of layers of stuff, but if you want to preserve any original finish, you really have to know what you're doing in order to prevent arriving quickly and irretrievably at bare wood. I don't like advising people how to try this because I know what the amateur results will be. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif #

Above all, never even consider using alcohol or acetone!

[swgoods]

Thanks for all of the suggestions as I just purchased a Gibson Tenor Guitar which I am bringing into my mando family as an octave. The tenor fret board has 40 plus years of finger oil and grime etc and is in need of a good cleaning. Any special attention required when cleaning frets?
My neighbor uses Naphtha on everything but white toast. Is it safe on fret boards? And, what to do in the area where the fret wire meets the board - there is a lot of DNA there too and I would like to clean it out as best as I can - Suggestions?
Thanks!
Steve G

[sunburst]

Some "grunge" is soluble in a polar solvent, and some "grunge" is soluble in a non-polar solvent. Most of the stuff that gets on instruments is polar soluble, and that means water soluble. That's why I start with water for cleaning, it usually gets most of the stuff off, and can't really do any damage unless it is left on the instrument too long.
Detergents fool water into thinking it is a non-polar solvent too, so it will disolve some of the oils, waxes, polishes and other garbage people might have applied to the instrument in it's life, and that's why it is my usual next step.
Naptha is a non-polar solvent, and will get junk like the gum from stickers and tape, and stuff like that that the detergent and water didn't get, but doesn't really do anything for water soluble grunge.

So, starting with naptha is kind of pointless for just plain ol' dirt, because most plain ol' dirt is water soluble.

A soft tooth brush, followed by 0000 steel wool should get the DNA and other junk out from around the frets.