How often do you guys oil your fretboards, generally?

I have been playing since the late 80s. I have 12 guitars and a bass. I have only oiled them 1 time. Every string change I polish the frets and clean the fingerboard. I just use guitar polish on the fingerboard. I have not had maple in years. No drying problem or build up of any kind.
 
Lemon oil is mineral oil with some lemon scent. It dries quickly. The cosmetic effect also disappears quickly. This leads many people to use it often. that's how damage occurs.

It does not contain silicone. Or silicon.
 
Lemon oil is mineral oil with some lemon scent. It dries quickly. The cosmetic effect also disappears quickly. This leads many people to use it often. that's how damage occurs.

It does not contain silicone. Or silicon.

I think it comes down to the brand of product...as there doesn't appear to be a single standard for the content of "lemon oil" brands.
Many of the old "lemon" wood polishes had silicone in them...stuff like Pledge, etc.

I have a couple of bottles of Wilbert Lemon Oil - Dri-Finish...which I think many people say is one of the better ones, but I don't think they make it anymore.
That's the oil I've used...though I do have some of the Dunlop 65 "lemon oil", which is mostly mineral oil w/lemon fragrance.
TBH...I have no idea why they even call it "lemon oil"...and if there was ever a pure *lemon oil* product ever made...???
 
Pledge is not lemon oil. It is furniture polish. Same goes for the other silicone base polishes.

Silicone based products have no place in the repair shop. They cause problems with refinishing and touch ups. Once it's on the bench pad it will be there forever. Throw the bench padding away and replace it. One of the biggest offenders is Armor-All. People use it on their cases. Not a good choice.

Pure lemon oil is used as a cleaner/degreaser. It is expensive. It's not a finish like "lemon oil." It is like other pure citrus cleaners.

"Lemon oil" is a poor wood finish. Most oil finishes do not protect the wood very well. Better choices are boiled linseed oil, tung oil, even so called Danish oil. They are traditional oil finishes for wood. They contain metallic driers that speed the "drying" process. Their strength is lies in the fact that the oils polymerize into a film that offers some protection on the surface of the wood.

Don't buy into the "feed the wood" myth. Or the "penetrating" myth. Even the best of the finishing oils penetrate the surface less than 1/64" on the best of days. It is a film that lies on the surface.
 
Better choices are boiled linseed oil, tung oil, even so called Danish oil. They are traditional oil finishes for wood. They contain metallic driers that speed the "drying" process. Their strength is lies in the fact that the oils polymerize into a film that offers some protection on the surface of the wood.

Don't buy into the "feed the wood" myth. Or the "penetrating" myth. Even the best of the finishing oils penetrate the surface less than 1/64" on the best of days. It is a film that lies on the surface.

Yeah...the "feed the wood" thing is what sells those products...people think it's a regular necessity. I think it's useful when you're in some "restoration" scenario...but generally, under good environmental conditions, you don't need to "feed the wood".

AFA the better oil products...I read somewhere that unless it was originally an oil-finished wood, you don't want/need to use any oil products on it.

Out all my Dunlop guitar maintenance products that I purchased as a "kit"...their "lemon oil" has been the least used. I still have the first bottle from the original 3-pack kit I bought like 10+ years ago...but the other two, the spray polish and the cream wax/polish, I've used up and bought more of, a couple of times since.
I'm not one of those people who has the caustic, sweaty hands...so my guitars only need a light cloth wipe, and I have never had strings get corroded or any of that.
 
I've been using Proline fretboard conditioner. Seems to work pretty well. Looking at the bottle, it mainly uses white mineral oil and processed castor oil. But after putting it on and then wiping it off doesn't seem to leave an oily residue.
 
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