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Post subject: Taking care of fret boards
Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2014 3:46 pm
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I have ebony, rose wood and maple fret boards. I play an average of four to five hours a day. They are very busy and stuff gets built up on them and they can look bad. I tried near every product that guitar stores sold and household things to care for furniture.
I was never real pleased with results and the over the top cost to take care of this little bit of wood. I read in a local newspaper about lemon oil a cleaner and a polish.
Lemon oil is a natural product like wood is, less chemicals on the guitar and on me sounds good. I clean the frets when I change strings. The build up about the frets and nuts I clean with a small brush then with a clean cloth I apply the oil and rub it in let it set for a time the polish it put the strings on done! I like the way my guitars look and it nice to play a clean instrument.


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Post subject: Re: Taking care of fret boards
Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2014 4:13 pm
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+1 on the Lemon Oil for the Rosewood boards. For the Maple and Ebony, just wipe em down are each playing, should keep em looking good.

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Post subject: Re: Taking care of fret boards
Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2014 8:13 pm
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Yes that is a very good thing to do I do that. The guitars get older they need some more help. My Telecaster is a 1973 and my Stratocaster is a 1985. They are both played at out door jobs smokey bars and practice. Just every string change keeps going. My other guitar are important to me and get the extra 20 minutes of help.


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Post subject: Re: Taking care of fret boards
Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2014 8:53 am
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For maple fretboards, I recommend waxing them when changing strings. That thin layer of wax means less dirt sticks, and a little more scratch resistance.

For rosewood, yes, lemon oil. As often as possible. For Brazilian Rosewood (i.e. older guitars) and Ebony, you don't strictly need to oil them more than every few years, because the wood is well saturated with its own oils, but it does not hurt, and brings out the wood nicely. For newer Indian Rosewood, at least every couple of weeks.


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Post subject: Re: Taking care of fret boards
Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2014 1:34 pm
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Thank you I did not know that and very helpful. My ebony fret board on my Strat after market and I think low quality. It was very dry and I put oil on it twice it seems fine now. I have a black rose wood on my Brian Moore guitar. This thing was dry as a bone and from the look of it I did think it was ebony. I will look closer now and thanks again.


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Post subject: Re: Taking care of fret boards
Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2014 7:43 pm
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kevinpaul wrote:
Lemon oil is a natural product like wood is, less chemicals on the guitar and on me sounds good.


The "lemon oil" you buy for cleaning/treating wood is typically 99% mineral oil (a petroleum byproduct) with a little artificial lemon scent mixed in. Old English brand, Homer Formby's brand, all the major brands are composed primarily of petroleum distillates. ("Mineral oil" is kind of a catch-all term -- paraffinic oils, naphthenic oils, aromatic hydrocarbons are all mineral oils -- any oil derived from non-vegetable sources.)

"Petroleum distillate" sounds scary, but mineral oil is what baby oil is made of. It's FDA approved for treating butcher blocks, cutting boards, & wood bowls, and is in many foodstuffs.

Pure lemon oil is a strong solvent. Straight, it'll strip many paints and burn your skin. It'll remove all the natural oils from rosewood and lighten the appearance of the wood drastically. As a food stuff, it has to be diluted -- a couple of drops per glass of water, a quarter teaspoon in a pie. In a stronger solution it's similar to citrus oil cleaners and orange oil cleaners. It's not a lubricating oil, and it doesn't "replenish" wood or "preserve" it or anything like that.

In wood-treatment lemon oils, it's the mineral oil that seals and darkens the wood. Baby oil or bore oil (used on wind instruments like clarinets) would work just as well and do the same things, just with a different smell.

If a rosewood board has shrunk from low humidity, you should moisturize/humidify it first -- it's lost water, not oils. After a board has stabilized (or before it's shrunk), oils can be used to seal the wood and slow down moisture loss, and to improve the appearance/feel of the wood.

There's lots of disagreement about whether wood needs to be treated with anything, and if so which products are best. If you play a guitar a lot and store it in comfortable conditions, the moisture and oils from your fingers are usually sufficient to keep the wood healthy. If you want to go above and beyond that, most commercially available wood treatments are fine when used in moderation.


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Post subject: Re: Taking care of fret boards
Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2014 8:01 pm
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The product I used is from Mil Sep I just heard of them. They do sell a cleaner, I think that is what you are speaking of. I never had that, this is a treatment and I don't know what's all in it my eyes are not that good to see the small print. It is clear yellow tint and fell like it is just oil. Not the cleaner I do know about that stuff. Thanks man!


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Post subject: Re: Taking care of fret boards
Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2014 8:44 pm
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Milsek? They offer a variety of products with lemon scent added. Here's the MSDS for their "furniture polish and multipurpose cleaner", which covers their "lemon oil -- gold in color with lemon scent", their "orange oil -- orange in color with orange scent", and their "holiday oil -- red in color with cinnamon/berry scent":

http://www.setonresourcecenter.com/msdshazcom/htdocs//MSDS/Retail/M/Milsek%20Furniture%20Polish%20and%20Multi-Purpose%20Cleaner%20with%20Orange%20Oil.pdf

"Petroleum family: Petroleum hydrocarbon/aliphatic petroleum distillates
(cas #64742-47-8)/(cas #8052-41-3)"

Even if that's not the exact product you're referring to, I can pretty much guarantee that the bottle you've got is more than 90% mineral oil.

Nothing wrong with that -- the various commercial lemon oils are the most common choice for fretboards and have been for over 100 years.

As I said in my other post, there are lots of opinions about wood treatments. I consider the "every couple of weeks for Indian rosewood" suggested by arth1 to be excessive -- I'd say once a year, maybe twice a year. But I know a guy who has applied lemon oil every day for decades with no ill effects.

Some luthiers say excessive oiling will soften the wood and destroy the fret slots, and claim that they've actually seen such damage. But there's no way for them to really know what a guitar's been exposed to -- maybe the player had crazy acidic sweat, or was a mechanic who didn't wash the brake fluid off his hands before playing, or something like that.


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