The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #92078   Message #1767400
Posted By: GUEST,DonMeixner
23-Jun-06 - 08:25 AM
Thread Name: rejuvenating old guitar strings.
Subject: RE: rejuvenating old guitar strings.
I once restored the entire Autoharp inventory for a large school district in central, NY. I used Copper Brite to clean all of the strings and they looked great. HOWEVER, the liquid penetrated the windings on the bass strings and corroded the cores to the point of universal failure. Luckily for me the decision was out of my hands when the music department head said to just restring them all.
So naturally I question the wisdom of boiling strings. Water equals rust unless you can completely dry them before they can corrode.
I realize this may be counter intuitive but you could clean them with
ammonia and soap water, if you are boiling them anyway. (That is how I degrease my jewelry after it is polished) Then spray them with a water repelant like WD-40 or a desicant like alcohol. In the case of the WD-40 you would have to spin them about like a lasso to get the excess off.
Or just buy new strings when the old ones are dead. Or play dead ones like I do.

Don