rust on fret wire

[jrock1]

I haven't played one of my guitars in quite a while, though I've kept it in the case all that time. I took it out the other day and the strings were quite rusty and the frets seemed to have some rust or some kind of corrosion on them. Is there an easy cleaning solution/method to get the rust off the frets. I don't want to do anything invasive to the guitar. Thanks for the advise, if you can give me any.

 

[RandK]

Use 0000 steel wool rubbing across the fret to polish it. You can carefully mask the fingerboard between frets with blue masking or drafting tape or you can make a second pass and polish your board by rubbing lengthwise a few frets at a time. The first pass will leave some cross board scuffs near the frets that you want to remove on the second pass. If it's a strat or something with a maple board do not rub it with steel wool and just mask it off with tape. Mask off around your neck pickup to keep the stray steel wool from sticking to the magnets. Vacuum up all the stray wool frequently.

:2zone

 

[jrock1]

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[gmann]

A Forum member posted a neat trick awhile back and it worked for me. He recommended using one of those pink rectangualr eraser that you can buy anywhere. I figured what the hell and did it, and it worked great! Just rub it along the fret, doesn't hurt the fingerboard either. Fast and cheap.