Renaissance Luthier Co. Conservator Archival Finish Cleaner

An archival-grade finish cleaner made to effectively clean musical instruments. This includes guitars, basses, mandolins, ukuleles, and
other instruments finished in cured lacquer, polyurethane, polyester, or
shellac. Water-based, with no wax, no silicone, and no solvent carriers. It
lifts skin oil and grime and leaves nothing behind.
Use it on: cured nitrocellulose lacquer, polyurethane, polyester, acrylic,
and shellac. On shellac and French polish, buff dry immediately.
Do not use it on: violin varnish, ivory keytops, raw or unfinished wood,
bare fretboards, or any finish that is already lifting or flaking. Test on a
hidden area first.
What it does not add
Most instrument cleaners work by adding something. A little wax, a little
silicone, something that fills the microscratches and throws back a shine. It
looks good on the drive home. Then it builds, and it keeps building, and in
twenty years a luthier has to strip all of it off before touching the finish
underneath. Silicone in particular contaminates a surface in a way that causes
fisheye in any new finish that goes over it, and it migrates into wood and
cloth and benches. It is the reason a lot of shops ban it outright.
Conservator was built backwards from that.
How it works
It is 98 percent water, and that is on purpose. Water cannot dissolve a cured
synthetic finish. Suspended in that water is a small amount of decyl
glucoside, a plant-derived surfactant made from coconut fatty
alcohol, which surrounds skin oil and grime and lifts it off so it wipes away
on the cloth. That is the entire mechanism. No abrasive, no solvent, no film.
What is left behind is nothing. The finish looks better because it is clean,
not because something is sitting on top of it.
Why not violin varnish
Because violin varnish is not one material.
It might be 18th century Italian oil varnish, or spirit varnish, or a modern
factory finish, and those three behave nothing alike. Oil and spirit varnishes
are softer, more porous, and often crazed, and the pigment frequently sits in
the varnish rather than under it. A water-based cleaner with a mild surfactant
is a reasonable thing to be cautious about on that surface rather than assume it’s ok.
Directions
A few drops on a soft, lint-free cloth. Wipe. Buff dry. Test on a hidden area
first.
Ingredients
Purified water, benzyl alcohol, decyl glucoside (plant-derived), dehydroacetic
acid.
Four ingredients, fully disclosed. No fragrance, no dye, no wax, no silicone,
no solvent carrier.
How it is made
Designed in Laguna Beach, California by a luthier with a chemistry. Every small batch is
recorded, checked for clarity, preserved, pH tested, and held for stability testing before any of it
ships. Every bottle carries its batch number.
4 fl oz (118 mL) in amber glass. Store at room temperature.