I have a 2011 SE Custom with a Rosewood fingerboard. I like a slick neck, so I have been putting Fender guitar polish on the fingerboard. Will this harm the fingerboard, if so, what would be a better alternative, or what is safe for a fingerboard?
Fingerboard polish
- Thread starter PaulSe
- Start date
Guitar polish is an abrasive polish designed for scratch removal, and isn't intended for fretboards.
The fretboard should be cleaned occasionally with lemon oil, the lemon oil is actually naphtha, same stuff as dry cleaning fluid or lighter fluid. You rub off the excess lemon oil, and then you can use a decent furniture polish like Behold or Pledge on a cloth to seal the wood. This is what PRS recommends.
The fretboard should be cleaned occasionally with lemon oil, the lemon oil is actually naphtha, same stuff as dry cleaning fluid or lighter fluid. You rub off the excess lemon oil, and then you can use a decent furniture polish like Behold or Pledge on a cloth to seal the wood. This is what PRS recommends.
It gets creepy and attracts dirt. It's on my un-recommended list.
It's mostly silicone, I'm told, which of course isn't great for a guitar in the first place. It's designed to make your fingers move with less friction on the strings, and to reduce string noise.
As it builds up on the strings, it also builds up on the guitar. Yuck!
It's not designed for guitar care at all.
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Remember that they found unfinished ebony and other wood in Egyptian tombs dating back to 1500 BC that was in very nice condition when they opened the tomb. And tombs aren't exactly great places for wood care...
So unless you're planning to be around in excess of 3500 years, I predict you'll be in very good shape with your fretboard.
Less is more, don't overdo it. Most of the so-called guitar care products are just feel-good things that aren't necessary or very good for the woods in the long run.
I have a 1965 SG Special whose original rosewood fretboard is in perfect shape with absolutely no care except an occasional - and I do mean occasional, like, it's been at least 20 years - cleaning with lemon oil and nothing else. And when I was a kid (the guitar was in my family from new, it was my brother's), it was a gigging guitar and I wasn't very fussy about caring for it at all. So your PRS will be fine.
This shot was taken at a buddy's, the floor needs a lot more wood care stuff than this 51 year old guitar!
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Thanks for the great information. I've decided to do exactly what PRS recommends, as I'm sure they have tested all of this and they are experts on their guitars. BTW, a luthier recently told me to watch out how much lemon oil to put on the fingerboard. He worked on a guitar once that had so much lemon oil on the fret board that it got under the fret board and had to be replaced.
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