How to Polish Your Bass Guitar in 3 Easy Steps

“Cleanliness is next to godliness.” While this may or may not be true, and some people simply don’t like being clean (hey, it’s true; not everyone cares as much about showering or laundry as you do!), your bass guitar will definitely enjoy it.

Keeping good care of your bass guitar can help to prolong its life by a longshot, and thus will help you to get the most out of your investment.

In this article, we will discuss one of the simplest forms of cleaning of the majority of your guitar by teaching you how to polish your bass guitar.

Note: This procedure is best done with a bass guitar that’s strings have been removed. This makes it so that you can properly clean the fret board and frets.

To Polish Your Guitar, You Will Need the Following Items:

• Guitar polish

• Clean toothbrush (you’ll want to designate it as your bass cleaning toothbrush)

• A microfiber cloth (preferably), or a new, clean cloth

• A dry place to work

• Three towels (preferably large ones—the bigger the better), folded in thirds

Step One: Lay Out Your Mat

Take your three towels, folded into thirds, and lay them in a straight line on your dry surface. Lay your bass guitar across them, making sure not to let it touch the ground. Make sure that the folded up towels are thick enough to add some padding (not that you’ll be performing any amazing feats with your bass guitar—it’s just better to be safe than to be sorry).

Step Two: Apply Polish

DO NOT APPLY POLISH DIRECTLY ONTO YOUR BASS GUITAR.

Apply polish to your cloth, then use the cloth to polish your bass guitar. Work the product in circles. Depending on what kind you use (liquid or goopy; neither one is better, although we prefer Guitar Scratch Remover polish, which is thick like liquidized putty), you will have to work the polish until it dissipates. Do not work on the same spot the entire time!

Move around and clean the body, between the pickups, the heel, inside the horn (those two curvy pieces of the body that wreath the neck), around the back, on the sides of the body, the back of the neck (don’t use the cloth on the frets or the fret board; that is what the toothbrush is for), near the cavity, and near the output jack.

Step Three: Clean the Fret Board

DO NOT APPLY POLISH DIRECTLY ONTO YOUR FRET BOARD.

Apply the polish onto your toothbrush, and from there work at the frets; make sure to scrub around the fret wire, as gunk tends to build up, such as dead skin and mildew. Just like the body, do a thorough job. Don’t give it a quick swipe.

The better you clean, the less often you have to do it.

When you are finished, give your bass guitar a quick go over to make sure that you’ve reached each and every spot. If you have, congratulations; you’ve just polished your bass guitar!

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