Removing light oxidisation/corrosion around tuning tuning post (beware 6-string content!)

[Rikki_Sixx]

I treated myself to a late-lockdown treat (of the small 6-string variety) the other day and absolutely loving it. It needs restringing of course, so while i'm at it I wanted to do a bit of cleaning.

There's a little bit of light corrosion or oxidisation around the bushings / washers around the tuning posts, on the front of the headstock. They're Grover Deluxe tuners, presumably nickel?

What would be the best way to go about cleaning these, without damaging the finish? I'm hoping not to have to remove these as I'm not all that confident in doing so without wrecking it, but I also don't want to damage the finish.

I was going to mask around them with painters tape and give them a few wipes with WD-40 on an ear bud or something but thought I'd ask the collective first. I'm sure plenty of you guys have done this before! The closest I've come to this is chucking a Babicz bridge in some WD-40 for an hour to get rid of some similar oxidisation, but that was off the body at the time.  

I posted this an hour or so ago on sister-site Guitarchat but realised that BC is much more active, so sorry for the sort-of repost if anyone has seen this! 

[PaulThePlug]

There is a product used by those in the motorcyle fraternity...  Called ACF50... a bit WD40ish but... not cheap for a single use

Well have a google and a read ..

GT85 is another with PTFE and lavender...

WD40 is in most peoples garage or shed though...

Edited July 24, 2020 by PaulThePlug

[John Cribbin]

I've used Peek for decades to remove tarnish, this will give you an overview:

https://www.thepolishingshop.co.uk/peek-products

 

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

Peek will work perfectly for this. I would remove the tuners to clean them properly though - taking them off and putting them back on again is not a hard job and its very unlikely to go wrong unless you drop something on the floor and it rolls under the sofa and/or the cat eats it.

[fleabag]

Bit of Autosol will do a good job