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Old 05-16-2017, 01:56 PM
frankmcr frankmcr is offline
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Default Rice to clean guitars?

Need to clean the innards of a very old guitar. I have vacuum cleaner attachments. But I have also read in a number of places that pouring rice (uncooked!!!) into the soundhole & swishing it around for a while helps, idea being I guess that dirt & dust will be dislodged and adhere to the rice when it's poured out.

Does anybody actually do this? Does it work? Does all the rice come out or do you end up with a lifetime's worth of old rice bits stuck in various crevices of the guitar?
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Old 05-16-2017, 02:37 PM
Rudy4 Rudy4 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by frankmcr View Post
Need to clean the innards of a very old guitar. I have vacuum cleaner attachments. But I have also read in a number of places that pouring rice (uncooked!!!) into the soundhole & swishing it around for a while helps, idea being I guess that dirt & dust will be dislodged and adhere to the rice when it's poured out.

Does anybody actually do this? Does it work? Does all the rice come out or do you end up with a lifetime's worth of old rice bits stuck in various crevices of the guitar?
I've done it a few times and it works well for dislodging fine dust accumulations so it can be poured out and a final cleaning done with low pressure through a air nozzle stuck in the sound hole.

The last one I did was a particularly dirty arch top body and the final results were everything I could have hoped for. I used two "applications" of a pound of white rice, lots of shaking, followed with the air blow out procedure.
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Old 05-16-2017, 02:41 PM
dekutree64 dekutree64 is offline
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I tried it one time and it didn't really work. It was more trouble getting the rice back out than it would have been to clean it by other means, and it left white powder all over in there, and several grains wedged into the lining kerfs.
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Old 05-16-2017, 02:48 PM
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fazool fazool is offline
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sounds like a reasonably safe idea - sort of like ultra gentle sandblasting
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Old 05-16-2017, 03:58 PM
Frank Ford Frank Ford is offline
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I use the rice trick from time to time, and sometimes go even closer to the edge of insanity:



If that seems a bit much, here's the full explanation, over at FRETS.COM:

http://www.frets.com/FretsPages/Luth...riceclean.html
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Old 05-16-2017, 04:16 PM
Alex6strings Alex6strings is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank Ford View Post



If that seems a bit much, here's the full explanation, over at FRETS.COM:

http://www.frets.com/FretsPages/Luth...riceclean.html
Nope doesn't seem like a bit much Frank.

Ok honestly it does seem a tad on the excessive side. Are you sure that's baking soda Frank?
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Old 05-16-2017, 06:33 PM
mirwa mirwa is offline
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Rice is good, I have a plastic media blaster in the shop, I distill some of the beads and use them instead, same close the sound hole and shake process.

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Old 05-16-2017, 06:54 PM
jzach46 jzach46 is offline
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BROWN RICE! BROWN RICE! BROWN RICE!

White rice leaves a white dust inside. Whatever dust brown rice leaves blends with the wood. When you're through shaking the rice around, shake it down to a shoulder near the sound hole. Vacuum it out with the crevice tool. Jon Z.
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Old 05-16-2017, 07:05 PM
frankmcr frankmcr is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jzach46 View Post
BROWN RICE! BROWN RICE! BROWN RICE!

White rice leaves a white dust inside. Whatever dust brown rice leaves blends with the wood. When you're through shaking the rice around, shake it down to a shoulder near the sound hole. Vacuum it out with the crevice tool. Jon Z.
(emphasis added)

I was wondering about that, thanks!
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Old 05-19-2017, 01:06 PM
Moocheng Moocheng is offline
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works well on Chinese guitars


have used rice to clean up a couple of guitars with excellent results.
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Old 07-09-2017, 07:29 PM
johntrem johntrem is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Moocheng View Post
works well on Chinese guitars


have used rice to clean up a couple of guitars with excellent results.
Although some might cry racist....that was pretty funny.

Last edited by Kerbie; 01-17-2018 at 07:00 PM. Reason: Removed masked profanity
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