The electric guitar’s place in rock ’n’ roll history pins it as a rowdy, raucous instrument to be played hard, but everyday wear and tear takes its toll over time. While not quite the living, breathing entity that is an acoustic guitar, the electric still benefits from a little routine maintenance to keep it in top form. We’ll suggest five easy ways to care for your electric guitar, which are considered good habits that can keep your favorite instrument playing for years to come.

Table of Contents

The Basics of Electric Guitar Maintenance
   Arrange Your Workspace
   Keep the Fretboard Clean and Conditioned
   Lubricate Nuts and Bridges
   Clean Your Strings Between Sessions
   Maintain Cleanliness With the Right Cloth
Closing Thoughts: How to Take Good Care of Your Electric Guitar

The Basics of Electric Guitar Maintenance

A bit of TLC goes a long way in ensuring your electric’s longevity. Without jumping straight into DIY setups and more labor-intensive adjustments, you can still enhance tuning stability, keep your strings sounding fresh and vibrant, and buff the finish to its day-one glory. It’s (thankfully) quite simple to maintain an electric guitar in this regard, and the ongoing process ultimately starts with the easiest tip of all …

When not in use, it’s a great idea to keep your guitar in a case. Electrics are less susceptible to changes in temperature and humidity than acoustics, but natural fluctuations can affect the instrument after a while. Case storage is also a passive way to keep dust off the finish and potentially out of the electronics, so contact points stay clean and your pots don’t get scratchy.

On the flipside, we understand the convenience of having a guitar, or multiple, at hand—especially to strum out a quick idea or squeeze in five minutes of practice here and there. Not to mention, guitars are functional pieces of art, so displaying your axes is … well, cool. At the very least, it’s best to store your lesser-played instruments in their cases. This way, they’ll be better prepared for action when called to duty.

On that note, we’ll save further “waxing” for your guitar’s finish. The following are five tips to properly maintain and protect an electric guitar.

Arrange Your Workspace

Perhaps an undervalued recommendation, this is really the first step in caring for your prized instrument.  

In the same way a neatly organized home studio streamlines your workflow and puts go-to gear at your fingertips, a thoughtfully arranged guitar workspace invites regular maintenance. Strings, cleaners, parts, tools and other accessories are ideally stationed wherever you’re able to wrench on your electric. The easier it is to access these essentials, the more inclined you’ll be to use them, and caring for your guitar will become a daily or weekly routine instead of a “whenever I remember” endeavor.

That said, you’ll want a decently sized tabletop to place the instrument when you’re working on it. Even a dining room table will do if desktop real estate is hard to come by, and you can always keep your maintenance materials in a carrying kit if you don’t have a permanent workspace.  

Pictured: Music Nomad Premium Instrument Work Mat with Neck Support

Ultimately, it’s possible to convert any flat surface into a workstation with a mat and neck support, such as this one from Music Nomad. Work mats are an effective, inexpensive way to position the guitar for a tune-up and protect it from scratches and dings, regardless of where you’re able to set up.

Keep the Fretboard Clean and Conditioned

Your fretting hand is in constant contact with the guitar’s fingerboard. Inevitably, the oils, dirt and other fine debris from your hands can cause a grimy buildup across the neck. If you’ve ever seen a maple fretboard that hasn’t been cleaned in a while, you know exactly what we’re referring to.

Easily prevented, all you have to do is wipe the fingerboard down with a gentle cleaning solution during string changes. Maple fretboards, specifically, are often finished and sealed, in which case you wouldn’t use a cleaner—just a wipe down and perhaps a tiny bit of polish will do.

Pictured: Dunlop System 65 Guitar Maintenance Kit

For other common fretboard materials, including rosewood, ebony, laurel, pau ferro and more, you can give the neck a proper bath. The all-in-one Dunlop System 65 Guitar Maintenance Kit includes the specially formulated Fingerboard 01 cleaner, which dissolves gunk and muck that’s accumulated over months or years.

With the fretboard clean, you now have the chance to condition it and give the wood a complete refresh, as well—again, excepting finished maple. Dunlop’s System 65 Guitar Maintenance Kit features the Fingerboard 02 conditioner for protecting and moisturizing the fretboard with natural protective oils. Keeping the fingerboard hydrated and conditioned can also help prevent fret sprout and cracks as your electric guitar ages.

Pictured: Dunlop Mini Body & Fingerboard Care Kit

Dunlop makes a Mini Body & Fretboard Kit, too, containing 65 Ultimate lemon oil for simultaneously cleaning and conditioning your fingerboard.

Lubricate Nuts and Bridges

This step is sometimes overlooked when it comes to maintaining an electric guitar, and it’s another one that can easily be performed during string changes. Lubricating various points of contact between the strings and hardware—including the nut, bridge, saddles and (where applicable) string tree—reduces friction to enhance vibrational resonance, improve tuning integrity and minimize the chance of breakage.

Pictured: Music Nomad TUNE-IT Lube for Nuts, Bridge, Saddle and Strings

A synthetic gel, such as Music Nomad’s TUNE-IT, is perfect for the job. Odorless, nonstaining and biodegradable, it won’t damage an instrument, its parts or even the environment. TUNE-IT also contains anti-corrosion additives to keep hardware from oxidizing, so it’s great for moving parts, like open-gear tuning machines and tremolo arms.

If you’ve been struggling with tuning stability and/or frequent string breaks, it’s probably time to address those critical contact points.

Clean Your Strings Between Sessions

The same grime we recommend removing from your fingerboard hits the guitar’s strings the hardest, expediting corrosion and making them sound dull and lifeless.   

Depending on how frequently you play, a string change can sometimes be substituted for a convenient cleaning instead. If you stay on top of it, you can extend the life and sonic brilliance of your strings by simply wiping them down after sets and sessions.

Pictured: Fast-Fret String Cleaner by GHS

Fast-Fret by GHS is a handy tool for preserving string life, featuring a sponge applicator and two-in-one functionality that cleans and nourishes fingerboard wood, too. Music Nomad’s String Fuel is a similar solution, incorporating an ultrawide applicator for covering all six strings at once. Another standout choice is the Dunlop Ultraglide 65 string cleaner and conditioner fluid.

Whichever route you go, keeping your strings clean prolongs their lifespan by shielding them from corrosive oils in our skin. Plus, the additional lubrication reduces the noise your fretting hand makes, and even helps you navigate riffs and solos a bit more fluidly. As an ancillary benefit, you can save yourself a little time and money by cutting back on the frequency of your string swaps.

Maintain Cleanliness With the Right Cloth

Last on the list, but certainly not least in terms of importance, is wiping your electric guitar down with a nonabrasive cloth to help keep it dust and dirt free. The back of gloss necks and where your forearm rests on the body are prime areas for sweat and residue to accumulate, as are spots around the guitar’s controls and bridge. Basically, any place you touch can become dirty or smudged.

Pictured: Music Nomad Soft Microfiber Suede Polishing Cloth 3-Pack

Whenever you wrap playing for the day, grab a soft cloth and give the instrument a once-over. Of course, if the guitar has been sitting around for a while and gotten dusty, you can clean that up as well. Music Nomad makes a safe, effective Super Soft microfiber suede cloth for this very purpose, and Dunlop offers their own version, too.

Now, if you feel like your guitar’s glossy finish has seen better days, you can restore its luster with some polish. Dunlop’s Formula 65 Guitar Polish Kit does the trick, while Music Nomad’s The Guitar ONE is a convenient formula for cleaning, polishing and protecting finishes in a single step.

Closing Thoughts: How to Take Good Care of Your Electric Guitar

Electric guitars can be maintained with relatively minimal effort, yet it makes a noticeable difference in terms of sound, feel and looks when you follow these simple suggestions. You don’t have to purchase any fancy gadgets or become a certified guitar tech—the basics are enough to care for your instrument and keep it in tip-top shape on a day-to-day basis.

For more tips like these, check out our guide to caring for your acoustic guitar, and don’t forget to stop by your local Guitar Center for all of your instrument maintenance needs. If doing it yourself isn’t getting it done, our skilled Repairs technicians will assist with everything from routine care and setups to custom modifications and upgrades.

Once your guitar’s dialed in and you’re ready to take your playing to the next level, expert Lessons instructors can help you reach your goals.