It's true, lots of people use lemon oil, myself included; but on woods such as ebony which are prone to shrinkage, dry out, and getting brittle as opposed to rosewood which is a waxy type wood.

Well, without getting into a debate one way or the other, you'll know by Wednesday. If you're happy, we're happy!

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You dig?

Ok so I got it back. He definitely oiled it. It's still damp. This means that when I'm bending my finger has even more resistance!!! Especially lower on the fretboard because there's more resistance in general to bending and requires more pressure.

But I expect this to go away once it's dried out. Is it right to assume that?

I'll wait until it dries a bit more, it does feel smoother in places but I'm worried that after oiling it it's just heightened the issue more or if it's just because it's still got a bit of oil in the pores.

The tech in this store thinks that it's a really nice guitar and the neck's fine. I think it might be me, that I don't like this type of rosewood neck, or that it's damp at the moment and I need to wait for the oil to dry out a little bit.

Anyone wanna swap for a maple? xD

No, it isn't right to assume that, nor that the neck will even completely dry out by itself! As was previously stated, bombing the 'fecal matter' out of a rosewood board with oil is inappropriate.

You've already found increased resistance with the board wet. This shall not abate as (and if) it dries.

What should have been done is what I had recommended.

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So how do you hydrate a dry neck? Polish wont do that.

Is this neck just screwed?

A finger wiping of the board sparing with water and a subsequent playing in is the best and least invasive remedy for rehydrating a rosewood board.

As with any oil, you're going to have to keep wiping and wiping and wiping it away to the furthest extent possible. Special attention MUST be given to any and all seams such as where the frets meet the wood, around the fret markers, where the fretboard meets the neck and all around the nut area.

No, the neck isn't screwed. Notwithstanding, you will have to get as much of that oil off and out of it as possible and then, you can commence remedy of the original problem.

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You dig?

An interesting thread.

What I'm wanting to know, this "grinding" feeling when finger bending - are we talking about string-to-fret contact or finger-to-wood contact?

If the frets have recently had a nice polish over then I guess it must be the latter. We don't know you, Mepha, and we don't want to be disrespectful of your playing experience, which we also know nothing about. But I'm sort of wondering about fretting with enough pressure that the grainy texture of rosewood could make this much difference to the feel of the string bends? Mepha, do you think you fret strings with quite a lot of force - are you a fairly hard player?

If so, nothing wrong with that, but then it could just be that you have quite a porous piece of rosewood on that guitar and that's enough for your fingers to feel the difference, even between this and other rosewood 'boarded necks. Not all rosewood is identical.

In that case I suspect that, just as Martian is saying, time will remedy the situation, because the wear of playing will gradually smooth the grain pores a bit, especially where your finger tips contact the wood most. Which we'd expect to be down on the low frets: I am really surprised if you are experiencing problems of this kind much above the 12th fret.

Meantime, mineral (lemon) oil can have a sort of grainy feel to it, all by itself. If the fretboard is now feeling a bit oil-saturated you might be able to help things along next time you have the strings off by taking a polishing cloth and having a good old workout on the fingerboard, as if you were a soldier shining parade boots to a high gloss. Might take away some surplus oil and also get that "breaking in" process under way.

And again, I'm not out to be anything but helpful - but I'm wondering whether the nails on your fretting hand are quite long and contacting the timber? No offense intended: just running the possibilities.

By the way, Mepha. No way you can know, but Mr Martian has decades of daily hands on experience with this stuff. You can trust his experience.

Good luck - C

PS: oops, written before seeing Martian's last post, which says some similar things.

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Okay. I'll start trying to get the oil out. Although the board does feel quite hydrated.

I'm fed up with this now to be honest. I just want maple.

I don't know what they are going to be able to do for me. I've changed all 3 pickups in the guitar, had a split coil put into one of the volume pots, got a small ding in the body, but I'm gonna ask them to swap it for a maple neck Strat. It's getting ridiculous now.

If they say no, I'm going to just buy a Maple one from somewhere and sell this Rosewood.



It's finger to wood. Definitely.



I wouldn't say I'm a hard player. I've played for nearly 20 years. When I play my LP, which is tighter grain RW I don't notice anything at all. It just feels nice and smooth. I guess I could always be lighter, and when I try and be I don't really notice it so much, although I still do on the lower frets, but I think that any lighter and you wouldn't hear the guitar!



I do notice it on all frets. It's like a dragging feeling. I don't know how else to describe it.
I think it is quite porous. It's definitely worse on the lower frets.



I'm going to give that a go, thanks. But I don't know if I can deal with the waiting for it to break in. It just feels horrible to me, like dragging my fingernails on a chalk board. This is a £1000 guitar, I shouldn't have to wait, it should be playable for me from the get go.



Nah my fingernails are short. To the point that my girlfriend is always telling me to let them grow.



I appreciate that, but when you're in a shop and a tech tells you something it's hard to listen to someone on the internet over the professional in front of you, no offence to anyone meant and again, I do appreciate the time spent in answering my problems.

Hi again Mepha.

OK. And again, no offense intended. Guys from beginners to pros are here, and we often can't know which just from posts.

Then it sounds like it could simply be a rather grainy bit of rosewood. As you say, your LP is much smoother - all rosewood is not created equal.

So after getting any surplus oil off, which can have its own strangely gritty feel, I'd re-read what Martian said earlier about wire/steel wool. That'll help, though take care not to rub the frets too much with it, and definitely take a lot of care not to let the little particles that come off it get anywhere near your pickups. Wire wool can be very bad for pickup coils!



For sure. No worries, and good luck.

Cheers - C

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No offence taken

Funny you should mention that. The tech at the shop who done the oiling said that he'd do a wet sand if I'm still not satisfied at no extra cost. Does that sound like something I should do?

If possible I want to keep this guitar, I like the look and tone of this neck.

What if I were to just get the neck lacquered, so its more like a finished maple neck?

First off, Ceri, thank you for your compliments!

Mepha, I certainly take no offense to you taking my, this internet stranger's advice with a grain of salt. Unfortunately, when it comes to so called, "techs", they run the gamut from phenomenal to abominable. There are WAY too many hacks out there nowadays and it is getting harder and harder for players to know who is a walking pile of BS vs. who is "the real deal". It truly is a damn shame, especially when one's instrument is at stake.

NO to the wet sanding!!! For starters, it would be one huge, sloppy, grimy mess because of all that oil slathered on/in it. Dry sanding, let alone wet sanding wouldn't do a thing. The only way it would have any effect (albeit, negative) would be to use a grit way too coarse. The fact that it was offered to you for free sends up a cautionary 'flag' (to me, any way).

You cannot have the fingerboard successfully lacquered unless every drop of oil is gone and due to oil's nature, this isn't a realistic expectation. This is, unless of course, you have more chemicals dumped on the board, thus consuming all the oil which in turn, will probably do a number on the integrity and viability of the rosewood.

If you were to try and trade the guitar back in, after all the invasive work you've had done to it, surely, you've voided any chance of a warranty. It will simply be considered an altered, used guitar where of course, they'll tell you they would have preferred it to be bone stock. Needless to say, this translates to the inevitability that you're going to get financially reamed.

Again, I suggest you keep wiping that neck down until it is back to some semblance of OEM. Do not procrastinate! Do it now and keep aggressively doing it before the oil has a chance to really start seeping in under and below the board.

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Ok Sir. Thanks. I've been doing it quite a lot. Although I've left the strings on, should I take them off? Stupid question probably but I'm using the strings as a guide, like, doing it section by section. I've done it so much I've got a shine on the bottom edge of the fretboard, either that or I've removed some of the finish.

Either way I'm doing it. Using the cloth Fender gave me to clean my guitar with.

Ok, so i just made a video. perhaps this will clear some things up to what it actually is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqC3GGgAl4M

First I play on my Gibson LP, and then play the same thing, with the same amount of pressure on the Strat. You can really hear the issue at the end of the video.

What I want to know is, what can I do to stop that awful feeling and noise of my fingers rubbing on the fretboard? Play lighter? But I played with the same amount of pressure on the LP and had no problem or symptom like this, that's also a rosewood neck but tighter than the Strats grain. I don't get his on acoustics where you need to press harder or on my Maple neck Tele. In fact, no other guitar ever.

This problem has gotten worse after it was oiled, but it was present before. That's what notifyed me of the string grinding issue which was caused by the saddles. I thought, that's weird, played some vibrato a few times to see what it was and then crunching started, coincidence really.

Then I got that fixed. Got the guitar looked at, was told it was dry, got it oiled, frets polished and hoped it would be fixed, but I'm still getting this issue. 2/3 are gone. let's get the 3rd!

Would jumbo frets fix it, would sanding the fretboard fix it, would heavier strings fix it?

Why is it happening on the Strat and not the Tele or the LP or any other guitar I've played? I've never played a guitar with a finger board like that, rosewood that's porous.

Thanks

In regards to your advice about bringing it back; You're right probably but I've spent nearly £2.5K in the last 3 months there, 2 guitars, 2 amps, pickups, a Boss GT effects pedal, plus I brought two friends in there who both spent £500 on guitars and another few hundred on amps.

I might see if they'll swap the neck, it's unaltered and undamaged apart from the oil, which ill get out, plus its more hydrated than when I got it!

I mean, I am a good customer.

Yes, the strings should be off.

At the risk of redundancy, like I said, get as much oil off that board as possible. I already mentioned how I'd make the problem go away with the steel wool. Needless to say at this point, NO additional moisture should be added to the neck. Essentially though, the whole issue is moot as clearly, you've decided that you no longer want that neck.

If you're a good customer and you feel you have a shot, go for it. Maybe this is a regional thing on my part but around here, NO dealership is going to do a neck swap as this involves not only taking guitars from different years apart but serial numbers issues, negating warranties, etc. Furthermore, they'd have to make some money on it, regardless. Evidently, YMMV.

All I can say at this point is, and I mean it sincerely, good luck.

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You dig?

I'll give them a call tomorrow anyway. Did you hear the issue in the video? Any thoughts on that?

Is that what you feel can be fixed with steel wool? If yes, Any videos you can recommend that can guide me? I take it the board should be a lot drier before doing it?

The board doesn't feel rough in any areas as such, but I'm still getting that issue, I'm not sure why its doing it. I think is have to do the whole board as I can make it happen everywhere with little effort.

Do you have an answer as to the cause?

Thanks again, I really appreciate it.

I watched the video and I have heard this noise before. When it happened for me it was one of two things: dirt and scratches on the frets, or really rough open grain on the rosewood. I would take Martian's repeated advice. Take the strings off and use steel wool on the frets and rosewood. Rub the daylights out of it. With fine steel wool you are not going to hurt anything. I would go against the grain on the rosewood to smooth it out. Also as crazy as it seems, maybe raise the action a little to counter the tension you put on the string with your fingers when you press down. The video was a good idea BTW! Mr C and Martian are some of the most knowledgeable contributors on the Forum IMHO.

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