Cleaning the fretboard

M

MenT-aL

New member
I have noticed a big build up of dirty, greasy, stuff on my fretboard and intend to clean it off. Whats the best tool to use for this? bearing in mind it will be scratching my fretboard to get the grime off?

I'll take off all the strings and give the guitar a good clean, any recommended polish for the body?

cheers

aL

P.S. my guitar's a Fender Strat, and the paint is black.
 
I Use Pledge For the Fretboard and Body....

Shines like a sun of a bitch and hasn't hurt the finish yet after years of doing it....

I have a strat with a rosewood fretboard
 
I use lemon oil for the fret board...it preserves the wood....helps to keep it from crackin'....
I use pledge on the bodys and backs of the necks.
 
cleaning guitars

I just put mine in with a load of wash. Then I set up a mic and record the clunky sound as it washes. Me thinks my wife thinks it's her tennis shoes. I hope my red strat doesn't bleed into her nighties.
Pledge, lemon fresh pledge, works for me too. If you get a small dull screw driver and put electrical tape on the end and then use a cloth, so as not to scratch, you can get that little line of grud up against the fret. You need to let it soak(pledge) a little to help loosen it up. Works for me.
dtb
 
I was advised by a luthier many moons ago to do the following to rmove grime from the fretboard (this was for an ebony fretboard - I imagine it will work for maple or rosewood).

Get some extremely light oil - the best is the valve oil used for lubricating brass instrument valves.
Get some #000 steel wool - the least abrasive. It is *very* fine.
Remove all strings.
Couple drops of oil per fret span (do this one span at a time), and lightly polish with the steel wool to get the grime off.
Wipe with clean cotton cloth.
Do *every* span, or it will look odd.
This also works to lubricate the wood on the board.
As this is abrasive, you will notice light scratches on the board, but these will fade with time. Make sure you polish evenly, so the finish is consistent.
Always worked well for me.

Mike
 
I don't know if I like the Idea of doing that with my favorite guitar.... Seems a little extreme.....

Do that a few times a year on a guitar you will own for 10 years, your fretboard would be screwed...
 
Better make that 0000 steel wool, 000 can scratch. A damp (not wet) cloth will loosen things up for the steel wool to work. It's best a very slight amout of oil or none at all. Never polish or wax. It should come out looking new. On maple necks (like a telecaster) only use steel wool on the frets to polish, and isolate the frets with masking tape.
 
I've heard to use a toothbrush but havent tried it myself. Any recomendations on conditioning oils for acoustics?
 
Just use a slightly damp rag and a lot of elbow grease, that grime will come off pretty easily.

GUITAR HONEY GUITAR HONEY GUITAR HONEY GUITAR HONEY

I RECOMMEND GUITAR HONEY. It is the best substance on the earth for your fretboard. It's only like $6 a bottle too and lasts for months & months.

I clean my fretboard and put a couple coats of guitar honey on every single time I change strings. Once you get into the habbit, it only takes a few minutes, and is really very enjoyable. Especially after you feel how nice that fretboard is after applying guitar honey, and how nice it'll look too!

I promise that if you buy the stuff, you'll use it forever.

Slackmaster 2000
 
Whoops, forgot a 0 - thanks, phil... :)

I *have* done this on my favorite guitar (a 71 Martin D35) since 1981, every couple of years, and it has not affected the fretboard in any way.
So we're talking about 10 times in the last 20 years.
Of course, as I mentioned, the board is ebony - pretty hard stuff.
I hate maple fretboards, so have no experience with them.
Have never done my rosewood boards, they wipe down fine with a damp cloth.
The reason I use oil is that there are fine cracks in the fretboard that dry out on me (even in a humidified environment). The oil lubricates the ebony, reducing the effect of the cracks.
 
teknomike

Yes the steel wool thing is not something you need to do very often. One of the problems with applying oils to exposed unfinished fine woods is that it ultimately has the reverse effect of drying the wood out and making it more prone to delvelop cracks. For many years I've used pure carnauba automotive paste wax on my instruments. Not too often on fretboards though, but on ebony it should be no problem. On rosewood you'll need a toothbrush to clean out the little white deposits that settle in.
 
Pledge, lemon oil, FAST FRET...

Pledge works well enough on the body of the guitar, but IT WILL cause the binding to yellow. I both read and was told this repeatedly when I was much younger, ignored it, used Pledge, and now have yellowed bindings. Guess I should've listened...

Of course, if this is not something that bothers you, then fine. It's purely a cosmetic consideration.

Lemon oil is the best stuff for fingerboards, I've found. Keeps them from drying out. Darkens the wood over time, too, which I happen to think looks cool. Though it's a bit messier than I'd like, I use FAST FRET on the neck, strings, and body from time to time. Negative point: I HATE the cheesy plastic containers that stuff comes in now. The cap doesn't fit on it well enough to keep the stick from drying out. Bring back the metal cans, FAST FRET!

Bruce in Korea
 
Neck cleaning four-step

I just got my Strat back from my tech, installing an Earvana compensating tuning nut (www.earvana.com, you gotta see this, man, it's sweet). I asked him about how he made my guitars' necks look and feel so good. He gave me a four-step process for bare wood fretboard (i.e., like a rosewood fretboard, as opposed to a shellaced maple fretboard):

Clean. Use a pretty dilute solution of water, dish soap and ammonia. Clean with cloth and if you need to remove gunk, use soft tools like a credit card and a toothbrush. Wash, wipe off, let dry. (Let it dry, let it dry, let it dry! Don't advance to next step if it's at all still wet!)

Oil. Wipe on a little lemon oil, rub it in, let it soak in, then wipe off.

Sweeten, seal, make it look beautiful. He then uses some Minwax brand Finishing Paste, rub on with a clean cloth, hand buff, dry, hand buff.

Then machine buff it with a . . . a buffing machine. This last step is pretty much optional, who's got one? (You can buy a little buffing attachment for your electric drill, though.)

It's several steps, and this is pretty much the therapeutic course for a dirty, somewhat neglected fretboard. If you do this, you can subsequently just touch it up with the lemon oil step, and then maybe every year or two do the whole treatment.
 
If you have to use oil, lemon oil is best. Use as little as you can....too much and you'll change the characteristics of the wood, which is bad for frets and good for repairmen. Also, paste wax won't 'take' to an oiled surface so there's not much point in using it. Fretboards tend to get plenty of oil from your fingers as it is but under extreme dry and hot conditions over the years a little oil can help.
 
...a soft cotton cloth with a very small amount of "tung oil" on it is the ONLY thing I would ever use on rose-wood...petro-distillates will damage the wood over time...
 
Thanks for the advice guys, i never thoguht about cleaning regularly! now i know why i'm nicknamed homer! "DoH!"

I think i'll try the lemon oil first as so many of you reccomend it, but the Honey method Slack said gets those taste buds watering! So i might try that too.

But thanks for all posts, i really appreciate 'em!

regards

aL
 
Does anyone know where i can buy some of this lemon oil, or polish, or anything from online, cos my local guitar shop aint got a clue??

cheers

aL

p.s. am i being stupid and not looking in the supermarkets?
 
Lemon oil will work, but is usually used more for taking grime of off painted surfaces (Like stickers off of guitars). Here is what I have been using for years and was taught by a lutheir that I used to work with. Goes along with what some of us have already said:

*Take all of the strings off.

*Apply a thin coat (Use Spariingly) of Boiled Linseed Oil (Available at all hardware stores). Makes ure it is boiled. Allow the sit for about 2 mins. This will cause the wood to swell slightly. The you can use some 0000 (Quadruple-ot) steel wool to buff the crud out. The linseed oil will also soak down into the grain a bit (Like mostly rosewood) and lube, darken it up a bit. Wipe off the oil with a soft cotton cloth.

*Re string and then I use a fresh coat of fingerease on the new strings prior to playing them. This fills the tiny cracks between the round wounds with a thing coat of vegetable type oil. This makes it harder for the dead skin that falls from the fingers to packed in there first.

Good Luck,

Fangar
 
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