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How do you clean your fretboard?


blitzkrieg bop

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Anything else besides merely wiping them down? How should lemon oil be used? Just want to touch up on my maintenance skills!

Thanks!

"When learned men begin to use their reason, then I generally discover that they haven't got any." -GK Chesterton
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Every 3rd or 4th string change, I take some 0000 steel wool & polish the frets, then apply a very small amount of pure lemon oil to my rosewood fingerboards & immediately buff it out. Be careful with the steel wool not to let the fibers embed themselves in the fingerboard.

It's not simple to be simple.

-H. Matisse

 

Ross Precision Guitars

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Well, I put the lemon oil on some cotton buds and have a good dig around the frets to get rid of any gunk that may be building up there. And then I leave the neck to dry and all that, which someone told me should take a couple of hours. That sounds like a lot to me, but hell, I just go play something else in the meantime. :)

 

The trick is not to use too much of the oil because if the area around the frets gets TOO wet, it could make the wood swell up, go soggy and cause the frets to come loose. Or so Caevan reckoned. And we're always talking about rosewood necks, of course.

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i use a small metal ruler on the side to gently scrape crud from the board. then i polish the frets with real fine steelwool.

after that i use a cotton swab to apply lemon oil to the fretboard.

which i then lightly wipe off with a clean rag and let the rest dry.

make sure you tape off the pickups when doing the fret polishing so no pieces of wool stick to the pickups.

if you have any trouble removing small bits of steel wool from any parts of the guitar just use some masking tape to pick it off.

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How do you clean your fret board?

 

WITH YER HANDS AND A RAG....YA GOOB!! ;) :grin:

 

Yep, take the strings off and break out the old hammer & chisel to get all the crud off...then follow up with some lemon oil to keep the neck from drying and cracking.

 

That should do it. ;) :grin:

 

Randy

"Just play!"
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HAHAHAHAHA

 

Hey dewd....wassup with the name change?

THank God you've got the same pic or I wouldn't know who you were. ;) :grin:

 

Identity crisis? ;) :grin:

 

It what happens when you dare the new forum administrator to use his powers for mischeif :-)

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My buddy's pawn shop score was this old Squire Strat with the filthiest fret board I'd ever seen. It must've been owned by a grease monkey who never washed his hands after work. It was so grimed up it was sickening. So we used TKO straight out of the bottle undiluted on a clean rag. TKO which is an orange oil based emulsifier really did a good job and the guitar smelled like oranges. Just lovely!
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  • 2 months later...
This is what I use to clean my fretboards

 

http://www.clearleadinc.com/site/images/pressure_washer.jpg

 

......and I thought I was the only one.......

 

:)

 

G.

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the World will know Peace": Jimi Hendrix

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=738517&content=music

The Geoff - blame Caevan!!!

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I always use linseed oil. I rub it in with a cloth

 

By day (and nights and weekends as well) I'm in the business of restoring and selling old antique tools for woodworking, leatherworking, blacksmithing, etc.

 

I have a "secret sauce" that I use on just about everything (here kitty kitty kitty) that is 1/3 melted beeswax, 1/3 linseed oil and 1/3 mineral spirts (or turpentine). I just wipe the finger board down with a light coat of that and if needed 000 steel wool. I don't use it on the body, just the bare wood.

 

Tony

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What do each of these do for the wood?

I always use linseed oil. I rub it in with a cloth

 

By day (and nights and weekends as well) I'm in the business of restoring and selling old antique tools for woodworking, leatherworking, blacksmithing, etc.

 

I have a "secret sauce" that I use on just about everything (here kitty kitty kitty) that is 1/3 melted beeswax, 1/3 linseed oil and 1/3 mineral spirts (or turpentine). I just wipe the finger board down with a light coat of that and if needed 000 steel wool. I don't use it on the body, just the bare wood.

 

Tony

Raise your children and spoil your grandchildren. Spoil your children and raise your grandchildren.
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I've made this inquiry to Ernie Ball Musicman, Schecter and Godin. They've all said to use very high quality lemon oil.

 

I use pure lemon oil from a health food store (comes in .5 oz bottles) on q-tips. Haven't had to deal with any serious cheese as I never let them get that bad.

Raise your children and spoil your grandchildren. Spoil your children and raise your grandchildren.
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