My C70's frets have got a lot of muck between them, and since I'm gonna get its strings changed in the first week of November, I was wondering if I should clean up the fingerboard with something. How d'you folks suggest I go about this? Also...do I need to lemon-oil-treat the thing? Thanks.
just take some wood polish cream and polish the fretboard...........and DON"T use cologne...i heard some f*ckface around here advising someone to use aftershave or cologne.............
Yeah don't use cologne, instead polish an unfinished fretboard. [EDIT: This was a sarcastic comment, FFS don't polish an unfinished fretboard!] You can get most of the muck off with a dry cloth. Regularly wiping down the guitar after playing it will prevent most of this buildup. Once it is more or less clean, you can use lemon oil if you so wish. Be sure not to use too much.
^I'm always suspicious of lemon oil, cus well...it's acidic. Clearly deteriorative in the long run. Here's another guy's take on this. https://www.cumpiano.com/Home/Articles/Articles/fbrd oil.html Cleaning with turpentine...how bout this? That page seems to go against wood polishes for the reasons of it having seemingly-irritating silicones, which is kind of at odds with this guy. I think I'll just clean it down well when changing strings, perhaps with turps if it wins approval, then see if it needs any treatment at all.
Don't do that! The grade of that pad will be much finer than the scotch brite here. You need 0000 grade steel-wool to rub the fretboard. And do not use wood-cream/polish. From what I know, it deposits under your fret tangs and starts affecting the glue......frets loosen with overuse. I'm assuming here your fretboard is unfinished. If it's finished, it's probably finished with some hard-assed lacquer/resin, in which case you can go ahead and phuck around with it all you want. For unfinished rosewood fretboards, I strongly recommend https://www.beafifer.com/boredoctor.htm It's the best I've used....and I've used 3-4 products (including lemon oil) before I had lovely results with this. It's expensive, but a small bottle will virtually last one guitar for its lifetime. It's expensive yeah, but not so much in the long run. And the guy ships to India, Mine arrived within 7 business days of ordering.
i've had my best results using the polish used for dark wind instruments. when using ultra-fine steel wool, you'd be happiest working with tthe neck rremoved from the body. if you aren't sure about that, make sure the rest of the body is covered and protected somehow, PARTICULARLY the pickups. it'll be next to impossible to get the ultra-fine strands out later, it'll damage the covers and if you have really bad luck, get inside the pup, corrode and/or short the windings.
I've no clue if it's finished or not - guitar model is C70 and the fretboard is rosewood according to the intertubes, if that helps. @pacifist...Wont steel wool scrape off the wood of the fretboard as well? :shock: @Flood - It's a classical guitar. No pickups, and not to mention a glue-in neck, but thanks.
Rosewood fingerboards are almost always unfinished. Use a nice clean cloth. If you feel it's too dry then you can apply whichever fingerboard oil you like. They're all criticised equally. Just don't go with the silicone based ones.
@Ultrabot, 0000 grade steel wool won't. As flood says, tape the pickups! It's next to impossible to get the steel wool particles off them! It's advisable to use fret doctor every 6 months to 9 months dependong on the condition of the fretboard. With reasonable dry fretboards, it takes around 4-5 drops for the entire fretboard, since the oil is highly lubricating. I don't know why this happens, but I've observed that after 2-3 applications, the "finish" lasts much longer. a 10 ml bottle would, by crude mathematics, be enough for around 30-35 applications. As Javed Jaffrey would say "Don't the use cottons!". Use your fingers to apply it. It's more messy that way.....leave it on for some time to let the wood absorb. Then wipe off the excess with cotton. +1 to thehundredthone's post immediately above mine.
Fever kept me restricted to a bit of lurking over the past few days. @Pacifist- I don't have a credit card - can't buy the Fret Doc. Won't turpentine do? >.<
steel wool will get the wood too, but not very differently than ultra-fine sandpaper would. in fact, i actually used it to get some of the grime off the wood. i think it's beneficial. one word of warning - do not use cooking oils of any sort - i used olive oil once and much to my chagrin, it started smelling after going rancid. if you can't order over the net, follow your nose to the local music store and pick up the oil i was talking about, woodwind bore oil (thanks thepacifist for the exact description and name). should do the job; worked well on my fretboard. do remember to renew it once or twice a year.
