How do you protect your neck/strings

I leave my guitar out of the case all the time for quick and easy access. The problem I find is that my strings rust much quicker and collect dust easier.

Does anyone else leave their guitar out and find this frustrating? Any solution for it other than throwing a blanket or towel over my guitar? Same with guitars that hand on walls.

Other than watching the humidity in the room I don't do much else. I try to practice everyday and wipe down my strings after I'm done. Seems to help but I still replace my strings every 3-6 months on average.

Wiping your strings down when you are done playing is important. My hands sweat a lot and my sweat will turn strings black after only a few hours of playing. What I do now that helps me keep my strings feeling good and lasting longer is I wipe them down the a cloth dampened with Dr. Ducks Axe Wax. It gets the gunk off and leaves the strings a little slick. It also keeps the strings from corroding.

Doing this I went from having to change my strings every 4 weeks or less to every 6 weeks to 2 months depending on how much I am playing.

Are you putting your guitars in a dusty environment? Do you play them everyday? I have all of mine out and I only notice dust build up on a guitar I may not have played for a few weeks.

I believe in wiping down the strings too although there is another train of thought out there that doing so more rapidly diminishes their coatings. I also wipe down the entire guitar after playing. And the guitars are [u]always[/u] in their cases unless I'm within a few minutes of sitting down to play. I've never felt inconvenienced by the 10 seconds spent opening the case.

Now I feel like I should be changing my strings more often 😀

Originally Posted by: john of MT
I believe in wiping down the strings too although there is another train of thought out there that doing so more rapidly diminishes their coatings. I also wipe down the entire guitar after playing. And the guitars are [u]always[/u] in their cases unless I'm within a few minutes of sitting down to play. I've never felt inconvenienced by the 10 seconds spent opening the case.

If you are using coated strings yeah that could be an issue. My sweat happens to be far more corrosive than any cleaning agent may be, so for me I don't worry about that. I tried coated strings once and they turned black on me just as quickly as regular strings.

I wipe my guitar down after each use also. No reason not to keep it nice looking.

I don't really have a place to conveniently store my guitars in their cases, but having a rack that sits along a wall that holds 5 guitars is both space saving and convenient for me.

Originally Posted by: markpetten
Now I feel like I should be changing my strings more often �

If when you change your strings, it's a tremendous different in tone and feel, you are waiting too long to change them.

Everybody's different as far as how often they should change them. One thing is for sure though...generally not a good idea to change strings the same day as a gig, especially on an acoustic ZZSmilieZZ.

Well I can't say I notice a huge difference in tone or feel but maybe that's just from being such a newbie. But I do check them for signs of wear and corrosion. Haven't seen any yet and I put them on back in June. I practice 30 minutes to an hour every day usually except for a 10 day stretch in July when I was away on vacation. Maybe it's time for a change. Not a huge expense anyway so I'll probably bite the bullet

Even with wiping down I still feel like my guitar is too exposed just sitting out, but I don't want to have to put it in the case each time. My room is small and I keep my guitar next to my desk, so I can always just grab it and play off and on whenever I feel. Even if it is just 20 seconds, it would annoy me to have to get up and go take it out of and put into a case each time.

But what about humidity? I keep mine in it's case with a humidifier to protect the wood (?)
Maybe it's just a problem here in the desert of Arizona?

Too much or too little humidity are both issues. I live in eastern Canada and summers are pretty humid. I have a dehumidifier to keep my rec room (where I keep my guitars) around 40-60% humidity. Too much humidity the wood swells and too little the wood shrinks