Guitar Fretboard Maintenence

There are times, more often than not we find grime stuck around the sides of the frets of the fretboard after playing for a long time, or the wood of the fretboard dried up in to a lighter shade. Commonly, 3 types of wood are being used as fretboard. Rosewood (Sonokeling), Maple or Ebony. 1 out of the 2 has a different way to maintain the fretboard. I shall discuss about maintaining your fretboard, making sure that your fretboard remains healthy for maximum performance and comfort.

Lets start by taking a look at the 3 difference kinds of fretboard.

Rosewood

Ebony

Maple

Rosewood and Ebony are both wood with open pores. Both are considered hardwood and oily to a certain extend. Ebony has a denser grain compared to Rosewood. Both of them fades to a lighter shade (amidst that Ebony is actually dyed black) of it's color and will eventually crack once lack of it's natural oil due to exposure to the environment. Especially for those living in a dry environment.

What i like to do is to replenish it's natural oils by cleaning it with Mineral oil, at the same time wiping away the grimes that have build up over countless months of playing. There are a few kinds of oil that i will use and have tried before. I shall explain them in more detail.

Ikea Skydd mineral oil

This can be bought fairly cheap from Ikea and is in my opinion one of the best oils to use for the fingerboard. It is thick and odorless, non toxic (For my readers out there with young ones in the house) and is particularly good at penetrating deep into the wood, keeping our precious fingerboard nourished. At the same time, excess is easily wiped away leaving only a thin film of oil to protect the wood from invading moisture.

Old English Lemon Oil

This can be found in more DIY stores and is also fairly cheap for a big bottle that will last you a life time. It is slightly thinner than Ikea Skydd mineral oil and comes lemon scented. For those who prefer leaving their precious instrument looking good and smelling good, I highly recommend this. The good thing about lemon oil is, not only does it acts as a moisturizer for the fingerboard, it also acts as an excellent cleaner. I remember that there was this once, after scalloping the fingerboard of one of my guitars, I left the maple fretboard bare without any lacquer and dirt stains was all over maple. So what I did was to pour in some lemon oil and rubbed out the stains. That actually work incredible. There were also myths of lemon oil containing lemon juice which makes it of high acidity level compared to other kinds of nourishing oil. There were worries that would eventually eat away the wood but from my experience, that has never happened. Chances are, the wood either gets a ding from our nails or cracked from dryness rather then being eaten away by Lemon Oil.

Johnson Baby Oil

You are reading that right. Johnson Baby oil. From my understanding, this is actually the same stuff as Ikea Skydd Oil with the fragrance. I've tried this on my fingerboard and it works just as well as Ikea Skydd oil. Only difference is, my guitar smelled like a baby for a while. But hey, our guitars are our baby, isn't that right? Now, why would I post this here if it works the same way as Ikea Skydd oil? I understand that my readers might be from a part of the world which Ikea hasn't invade into their country. However, I am pretty sure P&G has already invade every country out there that sells guitars. You can find these in supermarkets easily. The bad news is, it costs way more than Ikea Skydd Oil.

The next question is, how often do we actually oil our fingerboards? By right, we should only oil it when the finger board when it is dry, but the general rule of the thumb is, oil it whenever you change your strings. That's the best time clean your fretboard, ain't it? Generally, a well nourished fingerboard can last about a year without the need to oil it additionally.

Maple fingerboard however, have a different treatment. Most maple finger board comes pre-lacquered. Maple is a close grain wood without visible pores. Maple being a light colored wood, has a problem of getting stained easily, and really hard to remove the stains. To counter this problem, most guitar makers just seal it with lacquer or sealing oil. For maple I recommend my readers to use Lemon Pledge.

Lemon Pledge

This can be easily bought from supermarkets and is fairly cheap. It is also a well known furniture cleaner. Since Maple Fretboards are already finished with lacquer, using the oils that I mentioned above doesn't really work, since the pores of the wood has already been sealed by a waterproof finish. The plus point of this is, since no moisture or liquid can seep into the wood, neither can it get out right? The good news is, sealed maple wood doesn't crack from becoming too dry. Occasionally, just clean the fretboard with lemon pledge and it will leave the fretboard smooth and sparkling clean.

Sealing oil

I have read before in forums where people ask if it is ok for them to use sealing oil, such as Teak, Tung or Boiled Linseed Oil to replenish and condition their open pore wood fretboard. The answer is NO! There is a reason that those are called sealing oil and unless you like your fretboard feeling like an open grained lacquered fretboard, by all means, go ahead. Sealing oil works like lacquering but in thin films and usually done by hand rubbing. It is true that it permanently leaves the wood a darker shade of brown and even brings out the grain of the wood, however it is highly not advisable to seal your open pore woods. Below are a few examples of sealing oils.

Danish Oil (Tung Oil)

Teak Oil

Tru-Oil (Boiled Linseed Oil)

Lastly, if you are looking for quick access in buying the oils I mentioned above, you can order them from Amazon. They ship it worldwide I believe.

Old English Lemon Oil

Johnson Baby Oil