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Joined:
April 2010
Posts: 1227
Location: Connersville, Indiana | I have purchased 3 guitars from Iffy and wondered how does he make these look brand new. The Preacher and Adamas 12 string I bought looked band new when I received them. The Viper he already told me he was short on time and did not get to it. But I get it and it still looks new. Well if your wondering here is the secret.
Iffy’s Beauty Treatment
Initial cleaning procedure:
1 Remove the strings, tuners and TRC.
2 Lift the pickup/saddle assembly out of the bridge, noting parts location/configuration.
3 Using 0000 steel wool and mineral oil (MO), clean the frets/fretboard, going parallel to the frets.
4 Using a clean/lintless cloth, thoroughly remove MO and 'crud'.
5 Repeat 3 & 4 if necessary.
6 Liberally apply MO to the fretboard using finger(s) insuring total coverage.
7 Let 'soak' for an hour. While waiting for the MO to be absorbed...
8 Using fingers again, apply and gently rub in 'Formby's Lemon Oil Treatment' (FLOT) on the body top, back of neck and headstock. Amazing what is ‘lifted’ with this step.
9 Also apply FLOT to the wooden bridge. I use a Q-tip to insure coverage in the saddle slot, the strings entry/exit points and the bottom of the bridge where it meets the body top.
10 Using a clean/lintless cloth, remove all FLOT except for the bridge. Buff with micro-fiber cloth (M-FC). Inspect and repeat if necessary.
11 Remove the MO from the fretboard and buff with M-FC. If still 'thirsty' repeat step 6, 7 & 10.
12 Buff the bridge using M-FC. If still ‘thirsty’ repeat 9 &11.
13 Polish the tuners. I use ‘Cape Cod Metal Polishing Cloth’. If the tuners are really ’cruddy’, then I use 0000 steel wool and MO, wipe clean, then the polishing cloth.
14 If possible, using the MO removal cloth, I ‘dust’ the inside of the body cavity.
15 Then using ‘Dunlop 65’, polish/buff the entire guitar, except the fretboard. NOTE: This step may not be necessary if you’re pleased with the FLOT process.
16 Reattach tuners/TRC and reinsert the pickup/saddle assembly.
17 Restring, tune up and wear it out!
Some folk do not like to use 0000 steel wool on their fretboards due to possible ‘snags’. I’ve had no issues whatsoever with my method thus far. If you get snags, you have another issue.
I think that just about covers my ‘Iffy’s Beauty Treatment’. I’ve been totally pleased with it and have received many compliments on the appearance of my guitars.
If you have ANY questions, fire away.
Like he said, ask him because I have no clue :) |
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April 2010
Posts: 1227
Location: Connersville, Indiana | I don't know how to edit: It's brand new look, not band. :eek: |
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January 2006
Posts: 5881
Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | That seems like a lot of work. Does Johnny hire out? I hear that old Navy guys are real good at cleaning and polishing. |
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January 2009
Posts: 4536
Location: Flahdaw | He can also groom dogs, ferrets, and fish. |
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September 2005
Posts: 3619
Location: GATLINBURG TENNESSEE :) | ... and chipping paint (: |
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January 2002
Posts: 14127
Location: 6 String Ranch | We've got some fish that need grooming..... |
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Posts: 354
Location: nashville | you can tune a guitar but you cant tuna fish. |
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August 2002
Posts: 8307
Location: Tennessee | And the bass player gets all the groupers. :rolleyes:
Regarding step #8, why in the world would you put lemon oil on the guitar top? It's sealed with the finish. If it's got some grime, use a damp cloth. Same thing with the neck and headstock unless it's the oil rubbed type. Otherwise, it's a recipe for killing your strings. |
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December 2004
Posts: 4394
Location: East Tennessee | I have and old Ovation Owners Manual that states; "Dust and other foreign matter will collect on the fretboard and tuning pegs thus reducing efficiency. Develop a systematic routine for cleaning the instrument, using a soft cloth and a light coat of Johnson's pledge."
It seems to me that "FLOT" would be very similar. |
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September 2003
Posts: 815
Location: Colorado | Originally posted by ProfessorBB:
That seems like a lot of work. Does Johnny hire out? I hear that old Navy guys are real good at cleaning and polishing. Yeah, but don't they just use spit? |
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August 2002
Posts: 8307
Location: Tennessee | They're different things. Pledge is a cleaner/polish. Like Dunlop 65. FLOT is lemon oil which is designed to be absorbed into the wood to moisturize and nourish it. That's not going to happen with a finished top or neck. So it seems to me like a totally useless step since it won't soak in through the finish, and you just have to take it all off again and it's done absolutely nothing. On top of that, I have to believe that the residue left behind is going to just attract dirt and dust.
Is there something I'm missing here? |
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March 2005
Posts: 5567
Location: Blue Ridge Mountains | Using Scotch-Brite pads instead of steel wool has several distinct advantages: it ill not scratch the wood fingerboards and it will not leave steel wool slivers under the frets...it does a great job of removing tarnish from the frets when used with a small amount of mineral oil or fretboard oil (various manufacturer's)...after cleaning (always parallel with the frets) immediately clean the residue with a dry lint free rag. Then, using a very small amount of oil, reapply using another clean lint free cloth. Finally wipe dry with another clean lint free cloth.
I use another lint free cloth to apply a small spray (always on the cloth and never on the guitar) of Pledge (I get great results from the orange but lemon works well too) to the top and neck/peghead of Ovation guitars and the entire body of other non-Ovations. I then take another dry clean lint free cloth and lightly wipe and buff. By not spraying the Pledge directly on the guitar finish, it makes it much easier to remove the excess and leave a very nice residue free shine...jmo/ymmv |
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September 2006
Posts: 10777
Location: Keepin' It Weird in Portland, OR | Thanks for the tip Mike... I don't use Steel Wool on my fretboard, but I do own a bunch of green "scotch-brite" material that I use on my dishes and such. (I received it as guitar packing-material) Next string change I will try that out.
As to the Lemon-Oil; I still have a bunch of Old English from the ole daze...
I used to use it on my fretboard until I learnt about Baby Laxative mineral oil.
But that Pledge-on-a-rag sounds great.
Gee Mike, you must go through a lot of "dry clean lint free cloth"? :p
BTW-- I have a bunch of microfiber cloths to wipe-down for dust and sweat.
I just wanna warn everybody that MF cloths will leave little fur-balls on your strings that are a pain to get off. (just thought I would share that) |
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March 2005
Posts: 5567
Location: Blue Ridge Mountains | Gee Mike, you must go through a lot of "dry clean lint free cloth"? [Razz] I know that I was being redundant; but it will save re-doing some of the steps and the results will be worth it...
OMA, I buy 'em by the case...lol
BTW, Iffy loves his guitars and takes great care of them...one of his passions... |
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March 2005
Posts: 12761
Location: Boise, Idaho | Only slightly off course--the Scotch brite pads are the best things I've found for cleaning all those white marks that seem to accumulate on black guitar cases. Then a little vinyl polish makes them look new. |
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January 2009
Posts: 4536
Location: Flahdaw | A beautiful, unmarked case makes you look like an amateur...bang it up and be proud. |
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March 2005
Posts: 12761
Location: Boise, Idaho | I am an amateur. I even got turned down by a nursing home yesterday because I didn't know any oldies. I thought the stuff from the 60s and 70s were oldies.
Since my cases never get used, I just clean them up if I ever sell a guitar. |
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May 2006
Posts: 4236
Location: Steeler Nation, Hudson Valley Contingent | Originally posted by stonebobbo:
Is there something I'm missing here? This question really stuck in my curious little ol' head for a while.
So I've been putting some thought into the lemon oil versus cleanser/polishing compound debate. I had some ideas before I remembered I have a subtle major in two natural sciences, maybe an experiment was in order. But first, a little bit of presumption:
Regardless of whichever guitar polish/cleaner/whatever you buy, it has to be concocted in such a way as to deal with the most common contaminants on a guitar's finish correct? Probably the most common of these contaminants are sweat and body oil, the same stuff that is the most common problem in dirty laundry. There is a reason you don't use dish soap at the laundromat, and it has to do with the oil that is the target of the cleansing process. (Vegetable oil is somewhat different in composition that body oil.) Basically, you use a mild detergent to bind the oil so it can be washed off.
Likewise on a guitar top. Those fingerprints and smudges are a mixture of oil, dirt/dust, and sweat. A cloth can sometimes spread the "slick" thin enough to be unnoticeable, but it's still there. You need a mild detergent to get it off....like Dunlop 65 or another tailor-made chemical.
However, detergents aren't a catch-all cleaner. Laundry detergents have trouble binding much of the organic clutter left on your dinner dishes for example. They also have trouble separated bonded contaminants (what we know as stains) from cloth. That's why we use a two step process in our laundry: Detergent for the oily dirt, and bleach for stains.
Lemon oil is one of history's universal solvent cleansers. It readily bonds with a HUGE variety of loose, as well as bonded, contaminants on almost any surface.
So.....
Here was my observation:
Iffy uses lemon oil and follows up with Dunlop 65 "if necessary". Knowing Iffy and his pentient for obsessive guitar care, it's probably always necessary. Right Iffy? :p
You can probably see where I'm going from here. For an older guitar top with excessive (admittedly a relative definition) grime on the sound board, lemon oil will easily get the bulk of the grime off the finish, including contaminants that need oxidation (this is how bleach works) to be lifted. (Have you ever had one of those tough little spots that your polish seems to just spread around? Usually you wind up licking your thumb to get it off. Congratulations, the acid in your saliva just oxidized and dissolved a staining agent.) As I said, lemon oil is great for this.
But it is still an oil and cannot be wiped off completely even with a MF cloth.
BUT....
You can now take your cleanser/polish of choice, be it Dun65 or Pledge, and remove ANY oil residue from the finish while simultaneously filling and leveling any microscopic scratching that ALWAYS results from cleaning any surface with ANY cloth. That's why they are called "cleanser" (remove oily dirt)/"polishers" (repair/hide imperfections).
And yes.....about my experiment.
I just posted a very nice 84 Collectors for sale. Let's experiment on this one says I to myself. (Talking with yourself often ensures conversation at an acceptable level of intelligence, don't you think?) I used lemon oil first and found myself looking at a surprisingly dirty cotton cloth after it had done its thing. The guitar certainly had not looked that dirty when I started!
The top looked fabulous after buffing, but using a clean cotton cloth and wiping in a small circle with some pressure, I could clearly see a bit of a swirl on the finish. Proof that some oil was still there.
Another clean cotton cloth (Cotton was the control here.) I did a cursory polish with Dun65, and I was not surprised to note that I could no longer get the swirl to appear on the finish. The oil was gone.
I would bet good money that top has never been cleaner.
It seems to me that Iffy is simply using a two-step cleaning process without having realized that's what he was doing. There are probably dozens of combinations of cleaners that would work like this.
And BOY...Was this post longer than I thought it would be. Sorry 'bout that.  |
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February 2005
Posts: 11840
Location: closely held secret | Great post, Patch. Food for thought.
On the subject of talking to yourself, however... Occasionally I'm astounded that I'm holding a conversation with such a brilliant mind, but most of the time I'm convinced I'm trying to reason with an escaped mental patient.
And I'm pretty sure my wife agrees with the latter ANY time she overhears me. |
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April 2010
Posts: 1227
Location: Connersville, Indiana | I guess no matter what you use to clean the guitar with, if it works for you it works for you. I'm just a happy as a duck owner of 3 guitars I'm proud to say I bought from Iffy, and since he took all the time he needed to clean and take care of these, I have 2 very old new looking guitars and 1 98 Adamas that looks new. And it is not just the looks, they all play just like a new guitar, except they have the mojo acquired from years of use.
About Pledge. When I started playing when I was 16, I had used pledge to clean my guitars. Along with a guitar tech, the article in Acoustic Guitar Mag., stated make sure not to apply Pledge to the fret board, because the board is to be dry and hard. The article a long with the guitar tech stated that Pledge goes into the fret board and over time starts to make it soft. Well since I was told that, and then read it, I just have been wiping the fret board with a nice clean cloth.
Has anyone ever heard of this before. That the oils make the fret board soft over time. And if thats the case what am I suppose to use? |
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November 2006
Posts: 3969
| Originally posted by kitmann:
...because the board is to be dry and hard. The article a long with the guitar tech stated that Pledge goes into the fret board and over time starts to make it soft. That is just about the absolute worst advice you could get. First off, ALL wood, even kiln-dried to 12% moisture (the standard for furniture-grade hardwood), can and will continue to dry in low humidity. Dry wood shrinks, which can lead to stress cracks and even splitting along grain and glue lines. That's why you have to humidify your guitars.
Second, most fret boards are made from tropical hardwoods (ebony, rosewood) that are naturally oily and very dense. Those oils also evaporate over time, leading to lateral and transverse shrinking of the wood, furthering the danger of checking, especially since they don't get a hard top coat like varnish, lacquer or polyurethane that impedes evaporation.
The only way you could "soften" such dense woods would be to keep them immersed in water for months if not years. There's a far greater danger of problems developing if they get too dry. Most people use mineral oil to condition the fret board, but that's not the best since very little actually penetrates beyond the first cell layer of the wood. And that surface sheen left by mineral oil can gum up the strings, killing their tone before they're truly worn out.
Far better are nut oils (such as almond or walnut) or a mixture of tropical tree oils (gunstock oils). They penetrate much deeper than mineral oil and condition the wood cells naturally. A great product for that is Fret Doctor .
As far as cleaning off grime, Patch nailed it. Actually, most grime on guitars is a mix of salts (from sweat) and body oils. Anything that dissolves oils will clean the finished surfaces without damage. One of the mildest and most effective is a 1% ammonia solution, same as you'd use to clean glass. |
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Joined:
April 2010
Posts: 1227
Location: Connersville, Indiana | Fret Doctor, thanks G8r, I wonder why the magazine article and the guitar tech would say that, unless it's a use cold then warm, or warm then cold on a sprain type of thing. I know where I get my guitar stuff, I seen that he had that so I'll get some. I want to make sure what I have last for a very very long time. At least longer than my hair did. :eek: |
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January 2002
Posts: 14127
Location: 6 String Ranch | I only use pledge. Sometimes it's lemmon pledge. Been using it since the beginning.
I use terry cloth towels from the local golf sourse, they're free. Just make sure they're clean. |
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January 2009
Posts: 4536
Location: Flahdaw | Originally posted by Beal:
I use terry cloth towels from the local golf sourse, they're free. Just make sure they're clean. Now I understand why all the towels in your house have "Ritz Carlton" imprinted on them. |
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Iffy's Guitar Beauty Treatment.
