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Post subject: New Rosewood Fingerboard
Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 9:27 am
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Location: Regina, SK Canada
i bought a new Am Standard J with a rosewood fingerboard yesterday... the fingerboard has a dried, white-ish residue on it and feels dry... what do you rosewood folks usually use in the way of an oil to treat or rejuv rosewood boards?

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Post subject: Re: New Rosewood Fingerboard
Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 2:01 pm
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treat the neck with bar oil or lemon oil. Search how to oil a fretboard . There is a certain way to do it. When it's being done ( oil treating) you can take an artist hard bristle brush or a toothbrush and try and get into those open grain areas to try and get that dried white residue out. The white could be polishing compound or some kind of not good wax etc or a combo with some dirt in it. A couple of my rosewoods have had that and it's hard to get rid of OR I just didn't care and still have a little left.


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Post subject: Re: New Rosewood Fingerboard
Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2012 9:48 pm
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Planet waves has a good lemon oil & fret cleaner.......www.planetwaves.com :D


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Post subject: Re: New Rosewood Fingerboard
Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2012 10:33 am
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This caution always is worth repeating: Never put oils of any sort on a maple board.

Be REALLY careful what you put on a rosewood board. Cleaning it with just a cloth dampened with water is also quite ok. Use NO WAX or anything else that dries hard like guitar polish. You can put lemon oil or specialized board conditioner on there if you want, but it really doesn't penetrate but very few of the top cell layers because rosewood actually isn't very porous at all in spite of all the products marketed to "treat and moisturize" rosewood. Sure you may make it look darker for a few days but whatever you put on there is probably not only a waste of money but also not good for string life either. Further, I now believe that any oil residue left contributes to faster build up of fret scum.

I've been doing lots of reading about this topic over the past year. Many tone wood experts say there is enough oil in your fingers to give a rosewood board all the oils it actually needs. However, I have very dry fingers and I'm a frequent (compulsive?) hand-washer so I wasn't sure about that in my case. I had used several products over the years but I'm now just cleaning rosewood with water and not conditioning the rosewood at all. I've been using water moistened jersey (old t-shirts) for about the past year and so far the results have been totally satisfactory. I have 4 basses with rosewood. To clean the grunge around the frets I use wooden toothpicks. Toothpick wood is much softer than rosewood so there is no way you are going to hurt rosewood with a toothpick. Water softens the grunge up too. I find since I've been using water on rosewood that I wind up using fewer toothpicks.


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Post subject: Re: New Rosewood Fingerboard
Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2012 3:03 pm
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thanx B-Dave... i ended up using a product called Guitar Honey from a local music store....it was just a lemon oil-ish product.... the J was brand new and had a white-ish film on the fretboard plus the multiple packets of silica-gel in the case really seemed to dry it out.... this oil product (which i used sparingly) really seemed to darken up the wood and get rid of the white-ish film/crud that was on it from the factory.... you're right though, the wood lost that darkened/oiled/wet look after a few days but looks good now...

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Mesa Powerhouse 4x10 cab
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Post subject: Re: New Rosewood Fingerboard
Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2012 10:24 pm
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Bro Dave-- a compulsive hand washer---- I bet you don't get sick much. I wash my hands a lot too. I only get a cold every few years.


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Post subject: Re: New Rosewood Fingerboard
Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2012 10:31 pm
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Compulsive...maybe. It is undiagnosed. LOL.


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Post subject: Re: New Rosewood Fingerboard
Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2012 10:50 am
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Some gig funk. :wink:

...He rarely cleaned his guitar, and he never cleaned the fretboard. To (James) Jamerson, the sweat and dirt on the bass was the secret of his sound, the essence of the funk.


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