De-odorizing Gear

[diablo175]

Anyone have any suggestions on how to remove potent cigarette smoke odor from a guitar and case?

Febreze seems like a good place to start for the interior and exterior of the case. But what about the guitar itself?

[Keoghpjk]

I've had good results with giving the guitar a good cleaning and then shutting it in a room with a couple candles burning overnight. For cases, I just leave them outside in the sun for a day or two, then store them with a dryer sheet inside for a while.

[Steve Haynie]

This is the wrong time of year to leave guitars outside. Leaving the guitar and open case in sunlight is good, but wood can darken in sunlight. Being in open, flowing air helps a lot.

[Studio Custom]

You can rent or buy an ozone machine, run it in the room the guitar is in. Larger ozone machines are used to eliminate the smell of fire in properties affected by such.

[Jeff R]

Jim, you might try these in this order. I use this on guitars with no visible crud buildup and you'd be surprised how much crud this first couple of stages actually reveals.

Also, if the smoke smell is your goal, you'll want to gut the guitar and hit the pickup, control and trem cavities with the first chemical. While you have it all gutted, clean the hardware with at least a damp cloth.

• This GHS polish is a little stronger than the typical polish, more of a cleaner. It goes on kind of like a wax and I suspect it has a very, very fine abrasive in the solution based on typical before/after results. Rub it in with circular motions, let it haze over, remove and repeat, maybe even again. It's a white liquid and it will often turn a creamy snotty beige color during the circular motions if I'm removing smoky bar residue.

• The other I'd recommend is similar in use, application and results, just a deeper clean (more of a true scrub actually) because I know for fact this one has abrasives in it. I use this to remove light pick scratches and swirling if that gives you an idea.

On both of these, a little goes a long way. I put the GHS on the guitar in dots and go a small area at a time. For the Kit product, I put it on the cloth and focus on small areas as well.

[tbonesullivan]

To get out tobacco smell I have taken guitars entirely apart and cleaned everything with Stew Mac preservation polish.

For the case, first thing you should do is vacuum it. Clean the outside with some water and soap, until you don't get any more brown residue off. Then use a vinyl cleaner/conditioner. For the inside, first thing to do is vacuum it. If it's bad, then you probably will need the ozone machine.

If you have an air cleaner with an "ionizer" this also makes ozone, but won't be as efficient.

[veatch]

For the case, try Ozium. You can get it at any car parts store, like AutoZone, Murray's, etc. Might be available at Walmart type does as well. Cheap enough that it's worth a shot - cheaper than an ozone machine rental.

Good luck.

[Steve Haynie]

Try cat piss. You will not think about the smoke smell anymore.

[murkat]

said it a many times here.

clean~ use naphtha.

Polish~ use polish.

do not use polish to clean.

[mrjamiam]

said it a many times here.

clean~ use naphtha.

Polish~ use polish.

do not use polish to clean.

Use the naphtha straight from the can, or cut it like the label says?

[cmatthes]

Try cat piss. You will not think about the smoke smell anymore.

Best reply of the month goes to Mr. Haynie!

[diablo175]

Lent a good friend (who owned a couple of cats) a guitar for a couple of weeks. It came back with the interior of the case being lined with white cat hairs. Luckily, the cat only slept there and did not opt to make into a litter box.

Needless to say, that was the last time I lent him one of my guitars.

[Jeff R]

I had a friend in high school, Matt, who was the lucky one in our little rockhead guitar circle - while we were all playing budget-oriented guitars, his Dad bought him the first Kramer Baretta that hit our small market. It was an original full non-tilt paddlehead Baretta in creme with a real Floyd Rose (another seemingly unobtainium at that time), exactly like the one EVH had in the "No Bozos" ad that today is one of the holy grail for shredder collectors. It was the only of its type to ever hit our market, the next round were the tilt-head smaller paddles that were the production line guitars.

Matt's Mom (a "cat lady" in the true sense) had several cats that ran their home and a few of them adopted the guitar's case at the time as a litterbox one weekend. It smelt HORRID, I can't begin to describe how bad it smelt, I mean sicken your stomach bad. We discovered the weekend mess and tried to clean, air out, Febreeze, everything, to no avail - it was never the same. Matt got in a cramp and used it one time to carry the guitar to a "gig" (house party with throw-together band) and the guitar itself instantly took on the same smell. The guitar went from being our envy and our hands-on at every possible opportunity to being a discarded outcast.

Since the case was now a leper and the cats liked, it, Matt's cat lady mom adopted it for her babies as their permanent litter box in that room (every room of the house had litter boxes, some formal, some "created"). Outside of the odor, the case eventually started separating at all seams and had to be thrown away because it couldn't even serve as a litter box anymore. That was one of the old split-headstock lower-case logo Kramer branded cases - it alone would be worth prime money today.

And I never saw the guitar after we all went to our colleges, but Matt told me years later he ended up refinning the Baretta (himself, rattlecan) primarily because of the odor. He sold it shortly thereafter, for a literal fraction of what it was worth then, let alone what it would be worth now.

[tbonesullivan]

Am I the only one who closes a case once I take the guitar out? Leaving a guitar case open on the ground is a sure fire way to trip on and destroy it.

This reminds me of Star Music in Morristown NJ. That place STANK. Like Cat piss and cigarettes. Bet you can't guess why!

[Boomerang~Junkie]

I have a very nice, unique case that smelled moderately of some sort of nasty incense or air freshener. It's a specialized case that's built like a friggin' TANK. There are no traces at all of any critter pee, just some other ass-like, patchouli, hippy armpit funk.

After a full decon of the exterior and the guitar itself, I then knew the funk was limited to the case interior only. Thanfully, the guitar does not smell at all. That would have sucked.

I left the case in the sun during the summer for a couple of weeks which helped some. I started wiping the interior down with a damp, steamed towel (layed it across the interior for 5-10 minutes) and then put it out in the sun to dry. I reapeated this several times with clean towels. The towels seemed to absorb a lot of the unbathed hippy smells. This seemed to help the most.

I ended up killing off the last of it with Ozium, which is what most the car dealers use to kill the bad smells in used cars.

I was prudent about how much I used and sprayed around (not in) the guitar cavity of the case. I let the case sit closed for a week or so without the guitar in it.

My main concern was that any odor neutralizer spray might somehow damage, cloud or otherwise jack with the finish on the guitar.

The funk is 99% gone now and you'd have to know it was there in the first place - but was a serious pita to get to this point.

My .01 cents worth.

[jettster]

I'd rather have the cigarette problem than cat piss!! I have an original Cali case and I've shampooed with a steam cleaner multiple times, stored with dryer sheets packed inside for years, nope still smells like cat piss. Good luck.

[LucSulla]

There's always the Hendrix method, though you have to be careful as it can harm the finish.

[Hfan]

Am I the only one who closes a case once I take the guitar out? Leaving a guitar case open on the ground is a sure fire way to trip on and destroy it.

This reminds me of Star Music in Morristown NJ. That place STANK. Like Cat piss and cigarettes. Bet you can't guess why!

I had a G&L case that had an epoxy smell since new..left it outside on a nice sunny day to try and air it out, had kids running all around that day..went to get it at dusk and it must have gotten stampeded..busted straps (the ones that keep it half open) and bent hinges...damn kids arghh.. at least it wasn't cat piss.

I've used naptha with good results.

[Spike]

I had the same question a year or two ago and a quick search turned up http://www.acousticguitarforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=244607

I went with the baking soda method and did two treatments. I just sprinkled it in, closed the case and flipped it around a few times and then left it closed for a day or two before vacuuming it out. It worked great and the smoke smell is gone. One treatment probably would have sufficed but I went pretty light on the baking soda the first time around as I wasn't 100% convinced that it would all vacuum out cleanly (which it did). Even just the light treatment did a surprisingly good job of reducing the smoke smell. For the second treatment, I was a bit more liberal with the baking soda and that did the trick.

The guitar didn't seem to have absorbed much of the smoke smell so all I did was let it air out on a stand for a week or two and that seemed to be sufficient. YMMV but if your guitar absorbed a lot of the smoke smell, the suggestions that others have posted should do the trick. If not, I guessing a new paint job would take care of it.

[scottcald]

Am I the only one who closes a case once I take the guitar out? Leaving a guitar case open on the ground is a sure fire way to trip on and destroy it.

This reminds me of Star Music in Morristown NJ. That place STANK. Like Cat piss and cigarettes. Bet you can't guess why!

They had cats that smoked?

[hamerhead]

The Smoking Cat - isn't that a chinese restaurant?

[diablo175]

There's always the Hendrix method, though you have to be careful as it can harm the finish.

I'm sure there are some on here that would consider it a vast improvement over some of my choices in finishes.

[gorch]

Try cat piss. You will not think about the smoke smell anymore.

This is a good one. However, a homeopathy dosed drop from Dung's pool should work even better.

[Steve Haynie]

The cloth shops sell material that looks like it would work in a case. For someone with enough time, it is possible to refurbish a case if it is bad enough.

[Boomerang~Junkie]

For what its worth, I think most of it comes from a handful of main manufactures that source almost the entire industry.

Most of the case companies will sell you the exact fabric if they still make it. TKL does for sure.

[TBP]

I've used cedar chips in a bag, that worked so-so. Then I came across this article about removing smoke smell from books and tried the gonzo odor eliminator, which worked fairly well: https://parkslibrarypreservation.wordpress.com/2011/06/30/stinky-books/