it will still collect dirt and dust over time. The most basic form of maintenance you can do for your guitar is simply cleaning it with a cloth and a suitable solution. This will remove dirt which can dull and deaden the tone of your guitar as well as protect the woods finish.
Not all of us can afford to buy new strings each week and so a more practical approach is to clean them regularly. With correct cleaning it’s possible to increase the lifespan of your acoustic guitar strings by anywhere up to 5 times and save a lot of money in the process. Sweat from your fingers when you play mixes with dead skin cells and general dust to form grime along the strings. As modern steel strings are wound this grime easily finds a place to permanently stick and will quickly rust away your strings.
This is easy to recognize as the strings will change colour, won’t tune up as accurately as before and the sound of your guitar will become lifeless and dead.
For general cleaning of the strings and body it’s possible to buy cleaning solutions which will do both jobs equally well. The type of cloth you use is important as you don’t want cloth fibres to be deposited and left behind on your guitar each time you wipe it down. That’s simply replacing one kind of dirt for another.
The woods used to build acoustic guitars are often delicate especially the finer woods used on the more expensive models. They are often covered in a lacquer finish and with regular cleaning it’s possible to keep your guitar bright and shining. Be careful to avoid drastic changes in temperature and prolonged periods of direct sunlight as both these external elements can crack the wood on acoustic guitars witho