First of all, let me thank you for knowing why he did that. Way too many times I've been asked if I did that to clean them.
From about 1982 to 2003 I boiled every set of Ernies I put on every electric guitar of mine before I took it out of the house. If I strung it on Friday and played also on Saturday I'd keep them strings on and use that guitar for next couple rehearsals. Some guitars didn't go out as much so didn't get boiled and strung up as often, my main guitars over twenty years, in two countries and three states, all got boiled strings every time they went out.
I wasn't much of a trem bar user, I started boiling back when I had a couple trem'd washburns and an Electra Phoenix I remember, but oddly enough never used my stracaster trems. Still boiled strings for all of them, Mrs has a couple pictures of me over the stove with a boxa Ernies on one side and a pot on the other, Mrlbl in the face and a Heineken in my back pocket. Good times.
Then, I retired from gigs and stopped boiling them because if I'm not in tune nobody but the cats will know.
We boiled them to stretch them all the way, then when they cooled they shrunkdeded all the way down to shrunked, and couldn't stretch anymore. Only lasted a gig or two, would get really rough and begin oxidizing fast, but stayed in tune. Were fabulous for the first two sets, soft and slinky.
I think I wasn't the only guy doing that, there were others, Eddie made it famous, but not, as many still think, for cleaning them.
Thanks for reminding me CrazyTrain.
rct