Cleaning using the PRS guitar care kit (buffing question)

[Reactorcritical]

Sadly, I've never buffed anything in my life. So I'm hesitant to just slap some of the guitar polish on it and go to work.

Anyone have tips on the proper methods to buffing/polishing the guitar that won't hurt my newly acquired Custom 24?

 

[andy474x]

I use a microfiber cloth to put the polish on, let it dry, and then remove with a PRS polishing cloth - although I think any microfiber guitar polishing cloth will work fine for either task. I would advise to steer clear of anything that could scratch your guitar, like cotton, paper towel, etc. I guess I would also be talking about picks, but let's be honest, there's nothing stopping that!

 

[Reactorcritical]

I use a microfiber cloth to put the polish on, let it dry, and then remove with a PRS polishing cloth - although I think any microfiber guitar polishing cloth will work fine for either task. I would advise to steer clear of anything that could scratch your guitar, like cotton, paper towel, etc. I guess I would also be talking about picks, but let's be honest, there's nothing stopping that!

True. I had looked on YouTube prior to this and I see pretty much everyone using a drill (or buffer) with a buffing pad/wheel and polishing the guitar that way. I'd prefer not to use power tools when working on my PRS....

If I was swapping tuners, okay that's one thing (but mine has Phase III's so no need in that). But in pretty much any other case, no.

 

[rugerpc]

PRS buffs with huge rag wheels and lathes, but I wouldn't recommend it at home!

 

[bodia]

I use a rag wheel and lathe at home all the time to polish mine. Oh wait...were we talking about guitars?

 

[László]

First of all, no buffing or polishing is necessary unless the finish is abraded, scratched, etc. The guitar will stay shiny pretty much forever if it;s simply wiped down with a damp microfiber towel, and dried with a clean one. Remember, polishes remove finish by abrasive action. That's how they work.

So with abrasive polishes, the less you need to do it, the better the guitar will look over time. The operating concept with polishes is "do no harm." And "less is more."

Something like the PRS Cleaner, on the other hand, is a nice "shiner-upper" that doesn't work with abrasives. And it can be used often.

But there are times when you get a pick scratch or something that you feel needs to be polished out.

For things like pick scratches, and other scratches, there are two-step kinds of polishes needed. First, a heavier polish that will allow the scratch to be polished out but may leave the surface a little duller because it's got heavier grit, and second, a fine polish to gloss it back up. A typical example of a two step polish kit would be the two polishes made by Virtuoso.

Swirl marks just need the fine polish, you don't need the more abrasive heavier polish.

If you rub even a soft cotton T-shirt on, say, a CD case, you'll see that even fine cotton will cause swirl marks. Microfiber won't, it's fibers are actually much finer than cotton - but don't use the thin microfiber cloths that you'd use to clean a computer screen. Get the thicker towel-like. I recommend these very thick, very soft, microfiber cloths that are trimmed believe it or not in a microfiber material on the edges even to prevent swirl marks:

http://www.griotsgarage.com/product...e+cloths+set+of+3.do?sortby=ourPicks&refType=

For the metal parts on the guitar, I find that the microfiber 3M cloths that PRS sells work great to get the gunk off, and they never seem to leave any lint behind, either. I just dampen them slightly and clean the metal parts with them.

If you have nickel trim (some PRSes have gold), there are polishes PRS recommends for tarnishing. It's a body chemistry thing, I don't seem to get tarnishing with nickel, but some do. It's like silver, in that eventually it'll oxidize a bit, so it needs an occasional polishing.