Cleaning rusty strings, it worked for me!

[tone?]

Re: Cleaning rusty strings, it worked for me!

I remember Buddy Guy saying "the young guys have never even heard of tying strings. Back in Mississippi, we'd tie a knot in the string and put it back on. If it was in the middle of the fretboard, you'd have to learn to play around the knot."

Man that reminds me of a movie i once saw with Nicholas Cage and he is in jail and some black guy is telling him a war story ( like the one you stated with Buddy Guy) and he says something to the note of " when we didnt have Blank Blank to eat we ate sand" and Nicholas cage hasnt said a single word through the whole story and he says in amazement " sand? you ate sand???!"

too funny man. Some of these blue guys seem like they try to build some crazy ledgends around them or something.

cant remeber what the movies name was. cool scene though.


Just buy a pck of strings dude and live with using them for about a month. yeah i boiled them too when i was younger. i also used to fix ball ends with pliers. when a string gets old it also gets small kinks in it so it doesnt stay so much in tune.
Now even though i have the money and i still play about 8 hours a week i change strings like once every month and a half. im not that picky.

 

[tone?]

Re: Cleaning rusty strings, it worked for me!

oh yeah i think the movie is Raising Arizona!

that is one hell of a flick!

can believe buddy guy said that they used to tie the string! LOLLOLOLOL!

 

[MattPete]

Re: Cleaning rusty strings, it worked for me!

Don't laugh, but when I was in my teens, I used to use Stridex [acne] pads to clean my strings. Basically, they're rubbing alcohol and salicytic acid.

 

[ElUnoAstuto]

Re: Cleaning rusty strings, it worked for me!

UPDATE: Haha, so after listening to everybody's comments and a little research, I just ordered 24 packs of Light/Heavy 10-52 strings from Webstrings, and it was only 60 bones!:fingersx: Goodbye sandpaper, hello charmin!:chairfall

 

[gordon_39422]

Re: Cleaning rusty strings, it worked for me!

Goodbye sandpaper, hello charmin!:chairfall

:chairfall :chairfall :chairfall :chairfall

 

[Colma]

Re: Cleaning rusty strings, it worked for me!

For the love of God!

WD-40!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

thank god someone chimed in. i remember watching paul gilbert's terrifying guitar trip when i was first starting guitar... and he mentioned wd-40. i tried it once and havent bothered with any of that other b/s ever again.

 

[Aceman]

Re: Cleaning rusty strings, it worked for me!

Just a shot on a cloth, pinch it on the string, rub a couple time and good to go! A couple bucks worth lasts about two years! You only need a couple of drops and it not only cleans but protects! And cleans pots, de-rusts little screws and what not...I can go on fo days!

 

[davedvdy]

Re: Cleaning rusty strings, it worked for me!

Whatever it is...DO NOT use GHS Fastfret!! That stuff seems to permanently grime up the fretboard and leaves this oily residue feeling on the strings.

 

[WhoFan]

Re: Cleaning rusty strings, it worked for me!

When i worked for a few months helping out at a local guitar shop's busy xmas season doing some set ups, string changes, and minor repair stuff on cheaper guitars, we used steel wool for cleaning the fingerboards.... They had an area that was steel wool friendly... over a sink... First you taped up any area's that could be accidently be touched by steel wool while polishing, and tape up the pickups in case you got sloppy...

Last thing i remember the tech at the store saying to me is basicly there would be hell to pay if Steel Wool was ever used in the work bench area..

Good thing you bought some strings in bulk Elunoastuto.... I mostly buy about 4-5 packs at a time... these days i don't play a hell of a lot but when i had a band going i changed me strings before every show.. and once every 2 weeks if there was no shows happening... But when i had the band going i used to buy in bulk... i hate dead guitar strings... i like fresh strings and after 2 weeks they just feel awful to me...

But i now have such a large collection that i couldn't afford to change the strings as often as i would like.... some of the ones i rarely play can go for 2 years without a string change....

 

[kneadmomunny]

Re: Cleaning rusty strings, it worked for me!

first of all....3.00? what kind of strings are those?

second...your string cleaner idea would not remove his rust problem and wd-40 would eat through his finish from a couple of drops.

also, i would imagine heating strings would change them...i use blue steels and i know that the cold they apply to them changes them immensly.

and lastly, if you buy decent strings... they last a long time.

i pay 8.00 for my strings and i change all of them about every 3-6 months or when something besides the e string breaks. never notice a difference.

funny side note though....my first guitar had the factory set of strings on it for like 3 years (and before i had it) and i walked into the guitar shop when they started breaking. this guy looked like chong soooo much.
he was just like how old were those strings? i dont see you around here often.
when i told him i had used those strings for that long he nearly crapped his pants.

Do you know what it is like to have Tommy Chong hold back a steamer over your guitar?

 

[jdier]

Re: Cleaning rusty strings, it worked for me!

interesting point there! i'd never thought about the effects of different string materials on the boiling trick.. disturbing the structure of the string's metal might cause it to break more often?

and i've heard this technique used more on bass strings.. mainly because bass strings cost about as much as second hand pedals :laugh2:

tom

Yep, I started doing it with my bass strings when I was damn poor and $30 seemed like enough to feed me for a week. I noticed that while it worked great, they did not seem to last as long as new strings (in terms of a bright sound.) After a while I just started keeping my strings when I put on new ones and boiling the old ones and leaving them in my bass case to use as spares.

I have done it with guitar strings also and never noticed that they broke sooner. However, I only boiled them for about 5 minutes, took them out and spun them (held on to one end and whipped them around in a circle to get as much water off as I could) the dropped them into an IPA bath, then wiped them down.

Reminds me of watching a good friend of mine, J Finnegan, take a broken bass string (broke at bridge,) turn it around, wrap the brass end onto the opposite side and use that string to get through the last set of a show. When the set was over he told me "That is why I leave the tails long. Never know when you might need those extra inches."

A regular Mcgyver on the bass guitar...

Ahh, the good old days.

 

[jdier]

Re: Cleaning rusty strings, it worked for me!

first of all....3.00? what kind of strings are those?

second...your string cleaner idea would not remove his rust problem and wd-40 would eat through his finish from a couple of drops.

also, i would imagine heating strings would change them...i use blue steels and i know that the cold they apply to them changes them immensly.

and lastly, if you buy decent strings... they last a long time.

i pay 8.00 for my strings and i change all of them about every 3-6 months or when something besides the e string breaks. never notice a difference.

funny side note though....my first guitar had the factory set of strings on it for like 3 years (and before i had it) and i walked into the guitar shop when they started breaking. this guy looked like chong soooo much.
he was just like how old were those strings? i dont see you around here often.
when i told him i had used those strings for that long he nearly crapped his pants.

Do you know what it is like to have Tommy Chong hold back a steamer over your guitar?

I disagree with this comment:

and lastly, if you buy decent strings... they last a long time.

I believe that this may be the case for you, but every person is different. I used my bass strings (when gigging 2-3 nights a week) for over a month at a time, but if during a practice my rhythm guitar player picked up my bass, the next day they would be rusted.

I point this out, not to say you are wrong, but to say that perhaps the ph of your sweat is like mine and lends itself well to long string life. However our thread starter very well may be more like my rhythm guitar player, and have sweat that is hard on strings.

 

[Guest]

Re: Cleaning rusty strings, it worked for me!

Well, that wasn't to cunning or smart of you know was it "Astuto"?

 

[ElUnoAstuto]

Re: Cleaning rusty strings, it worked for me!

Apparently not! At any rate, I ordered 24 packs of 10-52's and 12 packs of 10-46's from Webstrings, took 3 days to get to my door, and they feel every bit as good as my regular brand of choice, Ernie Ball. I think it might be my sweat, cause whenever I could afford it, I'd always get Elixers, because I love how smooth they feel, but they last about as long as the Ernie Ball strings do.