Bridge of sighs. Not.

I've been working on this Ibanez Lo-Pro Edge bridge for weeks. It's taking longer than expected  because I thought some of the dead parts you see here were replaceable. Apparently not. Fitting American parts into a Japanese product shouldn't be the plan to start with. There are plenty of replacement parts out there but the issue remains - imperial vs metric.

After many disappointing encounters later, I resorted to just dismantling the parts & giving it a good wipe down & polish. The bridge was covered with dirt & grime mostly. The corroded parts were sanded down & polished. If you are the impatient type, don't even try. There were many small corroded parts that had to be dealt with. Holding them in place while sanding them down was a real challenge.

Contrary to popular belief, these two buddies were the unsung hero in the restoration process. No expensive concoctions were used. Dr. Duck's Axwax is oil-based & did well to dissolve the muck. The Kyser is spirit-based, its job was to remove the oily sensation after cleaning. So there you have it, a clean-up adventure that ended on a good note (no pun intended). 

Wipes

For those of us who actually bothered to set aside some money for our instrument's TLC, these wipes might be of interest. However. I'm the type who believes in drying everything up once some moisture or fluid is introduced to the instrument. The video clip below demonstrates how these were put to use. Note how the strings were cleaned- just merely wiping the top surface- FAIL. If you wish to clean your guitar strings, do it one by one. Pinch each string & move the cloth along at least twice. There's this belief that dirt & sweat do not settle themselves under the strings. Dirt & sweat settle on fretboards as well, these get transferred to the strings under side. Do take note.

Kyser: String cleaner

The Kyser brand name was the first string cleaner I tried (that was like more than a decade ago...). I still remember that strong camphor odour, very similar to our Axe Oil. It was a put off & the very fact that an elderly in my residence mistook it for medication so it was promptly discarded. The manufacturer revised the formula along the way & what we have today, the KDS 100 version, is an improvement in terms of odour (almost odourless) & feel (less oily). Regardless of these changes, the fluid picks up dirt well. This should be the foremost consideration & I give it a thumbs-up.