Care For Your Guitar
Humidity and Temperature
When storing your guitar, the humidity range should be within 45-55% and the temperature range should be 65-75 °F. Changes in moisture and temperature can cause permanent warping of the neck and other critical parts. A humidifier helps to prevent cracks and damage from weather changes.
Storing your guitar
The best advise for taking good care of your guitar is to not expose it to climate conditions that you wouldn’t want to be expose to. You should avoid large changes in humidity. Wood is more tolerant to changes in temperature than humidity. Keeping your guitar in a case away from direct sunlight will help increase the life of the guitar.
Cleaning
Use a good polish and lint-free cloth to keep your guitar clean. (Use polish sparingly). After playing your guitar, wipe the strings with a dry cloth. Use lemon oil or a specially formulated fingerboard conditioner on the fingerboard and bridge a couple times a year. Replace old, dull strings. Do no remove all the strings at once, but rather one at a time. This puts less stress on the truss rod.
Tuning Mechanisms
To prevent rust and dirt buildup on the tuning mechanisms, you should clean and oil these parts regularly. This also helps to keep the string in tune. Baby oil or vaseline work well. Remember, a little goes a long way. Try to avoid contact with the wood. This can stain or discolor the wood.
Strings
Regular playing does some amount of damage to the strings. It’s a good idea to change them regularly. Replace the set at the same time. If only one string is replaced at a time, the strings will have different tones and an open pack of strings will begin to corrode. Dirty strings can damage the frets themselves because the grime makes the strings course. Most string cleaners are intended to be used after each playing session. If these aren’t cleaned on a regular basis, use glass cleaner on a cloth, and slip the cloth behind the whole length of each string individually. When finished, wipe the strings with a clean damp cloth to remove any residual of the glass cleaner.