Every steel string guitar has strings, generally either straight wires (the high tone strings)or wound ones (the lower note strings) – and every human body produces oils. Some of us produce more than others, but we all produce some. Starting from that basic set of ‘givens’ and further qualified with the reality that some portion of the oils generated by our bodies escape though our pores – including those rather minute ones on the tips of our fingers, we arrive at the need to consider what happens when those body oils come in contact with our guitar strings. The answer is that they have a corrosive impact on them. Strings, generally, do not age well or gracefully. To the trained (or even to the untrained but sensitive) ear, strings that are old, have been too often stretched or have corroded to one degree or another simply are unable to produce, even in the hands of the most talented musician, the sounds they were intended to make. Most guitarists are aware that strings need to be changed out with some regular frequency – professional performers often have them changed before each and every performance! For the amateurs among us, depending on the frequency of our playing, monthly or even every other month may be a reasonable period of usage/wear for good quality strings. Most of us also know that strings should be wiped dry with a lint-free cloth after each and every use and that our hands should be washed before we pick up a guitar to play. We know a lot of things, but there are some among us who have not yet come to fully appreciate the value of wiping the accumulated body oils off of our strings after every couple of uses. Herein is the great value and functional utility of Big Bend G(uiter)String Cleaning Wipes.
These simple, single use, sheets are treated with benzethonium, chloride and isopropanol. This particular chemical combination cleans the body oils off of the steel strings on your guitar(s) – especially along the neck where you have fingered them during playing. The wipes also clean, without damaging, the fingerboard under the strings – an area often neglected for cleaning until strings are changed out and the fingerboard becomes totally unobstructed. In the same way that monitoring and managing humidity, particularly with acoustic guitars, and polishing the exposed wooden surfaces protect the integrity of our instruments, so keeping our strings free from corrosive oils and skin residuals prolongs the life of the strings themselves and provides the player with a more satisfying experience. In my own use, I have found the lifetime of my strings (both Phosphor Bronzes and NanoWebs)are roughly doubled with regular cleaning with Big Bends Wipes.
Changing strings is an ancient ritual activity for all guitarists – but to be able to extend the useful life of good strings reduces the frequency with which we need to perform this time-honored and necessary tradition. In addition, the cost of replacing the strings is about halved … to those of us with multiple instruments, these two considerations result in some substantive savings of both money and especially of time. If you have not discovered string wipes as yet – now is the time!
