Here are the 9 maintenance rules that everyone should follow to keep their guitar in pristine condition:

1. Wash your hands before playing. Your hands are oily and dirty. Washing your hands before playing can preserve the fingerboard as well as prolong the life of your strings.
2. Before you put your guitar away in it’s case always wipe it down with a damp cloth to remove any hand oils that may be on it. Not a wet cloth, just a cloth that is slightly dampened.
3. Put that guitar in it’s case! Yeah, it’s fun to display them for everyone to see, but your guitar doesn’t like to be exposed to anything. It doesn’t like changing temperatures, changing humidity, or direct sunlight.
4. You know those black canvas gig bags? Yeah, forget they ever existed. Get a real hardshell case.
5. Properly humidify your guitar. Get a case humidifier and find out what the manufacturer of your guitar suggests the relative humidity should be.
6. Have your guitar’s bridge and neck setup properly for the gauge of strings you are using. If you change string gauges, have your guitar setup properly for the new strings. Obviously you don’t want to do this too often. If you know how to do this yourself that is great! If you don’t, you might want to get a professional to do it.
7. Keep your guitar clear of any heavy temperature changes. Wood expands and contracts. If the temperature changes too quickly it expands and contracts too quickly – this is bad.
8. Change your strings on a regular basis and never remove them all at one time! Remove one string at a time to replace them. Keeping your strings at the proper tension will keep that neck healthy.
9. Play your guitar every day. Thats right – play it. What happens when you leave your car parked for a few months and then try and start it up? It doesn’t really like that very much, whether it tells you or not. Run your guitar through it’s paces, it’s good for it.