I thought I'd start a new topic here, on how we maintain our guitars and rigs, any special tips or tricks that may save each other some hassle or better yet, some money. Feel free to pop anything you want in here that's related.

1)when I was polishing the new axe up, I used this stuff that you can use on your plastic lenses on your car, to clear up the cloudiness etc, called Meguiars plastic polish. (It's a very fine abrasive polish, that you can use on any clear plastic to restore it to optical quality and clarity. It's not cheap, maybe 10 bucks a bottle, but it will do a ton of polishing. I used it on my 97 Regal's lenses, they had that yellow "eyebrow"; I took the headlights apart and polished inside and out, worked beautifully.)
I only used it in the guitar's scuffed area....I wouldn't go wild with it, but it removed most of it very well. I'm going to try it on the Yamaha bass, it's got some belt buckle marks on the back that I need to polish out, I think it would work great on that too. Obviously, you would NOT want to use this on a natural finish or oiled finish body, only on a painted and/or lacquered or poly-coated one. And not on the fretboard either- linseed oil only there, from what a luthier told me.

2) Another little cleaning thing I discovered...there's this stuff that's called detailing spray, that you use between waxings to keep your car looking like a show car....if you're that into it, I guess...I had some left over from detailing a car to sell, so I tried it as a guitar body cleaner, it worked wonderfully.
Great shine, high luster, removes fingerprints and smudges. Slicked the neck up nicely too.
Just be sure to use a terry cloth towel, don't want to add scratches as we go....

3)On a different issue- be careful what cabling you buy...as in instrument cords. I had spent some big bucks (40 clams) on a Monster Cable cord several years back. For some reason the solder joint on the "L" plug kept breaking. They're guaranteed for life, so I can get it replaced, but here's the real kicker; the 1/4 inch phone plugs are plated for higher conductivity, so I think they are slightly larger than normal. Therefore, they stretch out your guitar's input socket's internals, and if you ever have to use a different cord, it's suddenly loose! This caused me to have to get the socket replaced a while back on my Yamaha 5 that I had before I could sell it....an unnecessary trip to the repair shop.
Now, don't get me wrong ,it's a great cable, you can definitely hear the difference from a standard instrument cord, but once you use it you have to stick with it.
I recently bought some new cables, from Guitar Center, called Planet Wave Premiums, and they sound just as good, for much less buckos.
This is one place you don't want to scrimp on your rig, it costs more for a good cable but it's worth it if you record or plan to play a lot. Who wants wimpy bass??

Oh well gotta go- any other fanatics out there that want to share how they keep their rig like new?

Well it depends on me. For my crappy beginner guitar, which was easily intended for todays rock and roll, i converted into a trad. jazz guitar, (hehe), that I don't give a hoot, except for the fact that if it breaks I won't have an ele. guitar. But for my nearly 100 year old, 10,000 cutsom D'Angelico guitar from the 30's, simple as this. Dont ever play it!

Hey Tony -

I'm anxious to hear how that plastic polish works on the belt marks on your Yammy. I got the same thing on my Stingray, but I'm hesitant to try anything like that. Since you're volunteering to go first...

I pretty much just do the basics - guitar polish on the body, lemon oil on the fingerboard and neck. I've found I like Gibson guitar polish better than Ernie Ball, but those are really the only two I've tried. My Carvin is oiled so I just lemon oil the entire thing.

Rob-
Not all that well...it was like it's too mild to do any good. So, being the adventurous type that I am, I grabbed my bottle of 3M Perfect-It Swirl Mark Remover for dark cars #39009.
Helped, but still not strong enough.
So I pulled out the 3M Perfect-It Rubbing Compound, Fine Cut, #39002. It helps a lot more on the Yammy's belt buckle marks that are just fine scratches...some are a bit deeper, actually indented into the wood just a hair, and it can't do much for those. I went back over my Warwick, where the scuff mark is; it still had some fine scratches and a gloss differential that you could see in the right light, and the rubbing compound polished it up just like brand new. Not a scratch to be seen now.
Obviously the plastic polish is very light duty, the swirl mark remover is light duty, the rubbing compound medium. After about three applications on the belt marks on the Yammy, it's looking much better. Elbow grease is required, but there's little chance you can damage the finish with these products. (Caution tho, around neck bolts etc, you may want to mask the hardware. It may take the blacking off of the screwheads, since that's not paint, just a thin plating. If they're chromed like on my Warwick, it's probably ok.).I'm going to polish over them both with a good quality clearcoat polish like Meguiars Gold Class, then they should be good to go for a while.
In reading back over my post, this sounds like a classic case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder...but I want my guitar to look at good as it sounds, so it's worth it to me.
Gotta get back to work, enough fun stuff I guess...
Tony

I had the same experience with Monster Cable. They messed up the jack on my Ibanez and I'm going to have to have the jack replaced! I've used Groove Plugs without any problems but have now switched to Whirlwind cables! I love them. Monster Cable is also way overpriced! It looks like many of the cable manufacturers are offering free replacements these days though. At some point, I'm going to start making my own guitar and speaker cables.

As for polishing or cleaning my basses, that's an area where I'm sorely lacking. I may wipe then down every now and then but don't do much in keeping them clean and polished. Once a year, I will take them to a tech to have them setup and cleaned up. I just had my new Lakland setup but I think I'm going to need my frets sanded down as I have some fret buzz going on and I need to be able to dig in and not have to deal with all that fret buzz noise! But that's another thread!

Well DW, you and I are in good company....a bassist I had the rare privilege of having dinner with a couple years ago told me he had the same issue with those cables. I won't say his name, not sure if he's taking promo money from one of the suppliers...but trust me, you know who it is. And he had to have his input jacks replaced also. He wasn't too happy about it.

Now here's another thing to watch out for....I restrung my Yammy the day before our big Christmas performance, and it turned into a nightmare for me. I had a set of D'Addarios on it I think, not sure exactly, but anyway I had bought some DRs, handwound strings, based on a sales clerk's recommendation. I was all excited to try them out, but once I had removed the other strings, I realized they were radically different down at the bridge end...the DRs are taper wound, so the thickness of the string is MUCH different at the saddle than the DAddarios. That wrecks the intonation and the action all in one fell swoop. I had to spend an hour or so with my barely adequate tuner that's built-in to my Pod to get the intonation reset, and reset the action to where the B and E weren't buzzing like crazy. Now my action is all buggered up.
Two things I learned here...1) get a better tuner, one with a needle on it preferably, or a frequency counter. Expect to spend 30 bucks or so.
2) Don't make a radical change to your equipment before a show- my good intentions cut into my practice time, and it showed.
Later
TY

I hear ya! I try to stick with the same strings and change them out one at a time. This Lakland is the first bass I've owned that has the string through body option so I have to get used to that.