rosewood ~ oil conditioning

After our thread on care products a few months back, I thought about the stuff I put on my guitar. Body care was always easy. I don't use anything other than a soft cloth (black Dunlop brand in my case), but for the rosewood, I used to use Fret Doctor for years. Until a couple of months ago, that is. I believe in guitar companies knowing how to build guitars and wood care companies how to make wood care products. I'm using Howard Feed N Wax. A mix of orange oil and beeswax. Amazing stuff
 
Simon Says said:
After our thread on care products a few months back, I thought about the stuff I put on my guitar. Body care was always easy. I don't use anything other than a soft cloth (black Dunlop brand in my case), but for the rosewood, I used to use Fret Doctor for years. Until a couple of months ago, that is. I believe in guitar companies knowing how to build guitars and wood care companies how to make wood care products. I'm using Howard Feed N Wax. A mix of orange oil and beeswax. Amazing stuff
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And mineral oil...which is listed as an ingredient...well, you probably saw my previous posts. I won't beat a dead horse.

I always say 'horses for courses' regarding guitars and amps. I'm gonna say the same about guitar care products. There are different wood care specialty products made for different uses, different finishes, and different types of wood. It's good to know what products works for particular uses.

With a fretboard you're dealing with the wood, how the wood mates up with the frets (i.e., does the wood swell against them, or shrink), the adhesives for the frets (PRS uses crazy glue or something), the inlay materials and the inlay adhesives, etc.

Fretboard treatment has to do no harm to any of these. So I'd simply recommend getting lots of info, being a minimalist and being careful.
 
DISTORT6 said:
Neal Schon uses salami. Allegedly.
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I have a friend who uses the oil from the skin on his nose, which he calls 'noseola', on his fretboards.

[Insert green vomit emoji]

Playing a fretboard covered in the oils and sebum from someone's nose isn't my idea of a great way to spend my time, but hey, we're all different!
 
Lewguitar said:
Sheer cussedness!

BTW, Roy Buchanan used Lemon Pledge.
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Paul Reed Smith used to recommend Pledge or Behold for the back of rosewood necks. For real!

I have no idea what's in that stuff. But I tried it with my Rosewood neck McCartys. Nothing bad happened, but I still had trouble with the necks getting furry after a night of playing them, so if it was supposed to prevent that, it didn't (at least for me).

They sounded great, though.

For a while the PTC offered a special treatment of some kind for rosewood necks that was supposed to be amazing. They might still be doing it, for all I know, but I no longer have either of those guitars.
 
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According to this lab tech's post I found on Reddit: Dr. Ducks Axe Wax and most of the string and fretboard oils are just mineral oil with a lemon scent.​

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"So I am a lab tech by trade, and I wanted to buy some oil and saw all the options. So I went searching for their MSDS to compare the components they contained to figure out which one I should go for.

Well, every lemon oil/fretboard conditioner I checked (all the big brands; Dunlop, D'ADDario, Dr.Duck, Music Nomad and more) are 100% White Mineral Oil (CAS# 8042-47-5).

Stuff that is supposed to make your strings slick too, like Dunlop 65 Ultra Glide is just mineral oil with <1% silicone oil (Dimethicone) added.

And the different brands have different colorings and scents.

So, on to the savings part. Checked a couple of non-additive baby oils, guess what, same exact white mineral oil (CAS# 8042-47-5).

Using CAS number is the best way to identify same compounds, as one compound will only have one CAS number, but the chemical and trade names can be plentiful and confusing.

And a bottle of 500ml Johnson's Baby oil is about 2$ and a bottle of 50-100ml "Lemon oil" is 5-10$.

That's a nice mark up, no wonder everyone has their own Lemon oil to sell you."

Lew again now: So the Howard Cutting Board Oil I use is harmless and 100% pure food grade mineral oil.

It's the same oil used in baby oil and in most all of the expensive fretboard oils before they add scent and (sometimes) silicone.

That's according to that guitar playing lab tech who wrote that post on Reddit.

I'm glad Dr. Duck is making a nice living. No knock on Dr. Duck. I wish I'd thought of it!
 
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Lewguitar said:
I'll bet they work great.

Someone here on the forum (Greywolf?) turned me onto these fretboard protectors that are nicer than the version I'd been using. I bought a set

You can polish the frets across the fingerboard without scratching the wood.

I round the ends if need be with a fret end rounding file and then polish the frets to a soft gloss.

FRINE Fret Polishing Kit - Sweetwater

Looking for Guitar Cleaning & Care gear? Sweetwater has Easy Payments, FREE Shipping, and FREE Sweetwater Support for Guitar Cleaning & Care gear!
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I have the fretboard protectors too. I use them with the erasers. I have the full set of the erasers. They have a range of grit like sandpaper.
 
JasonE said:
I won't use anything with wax in the name. Wax is for painted surfaces, not wood.
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I use the same Howard product I use on my fretboards and my furniture, only they also make it as pure mineral oil with wax.

I don't use the one with added wax on my fretboards but I like it as a final touch on my furniture and other woodworking projects.

Makes it shine.
 
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of course if you want to go real natural .. and it's A powerful tissue regenerator, it tones and regenerates tissues, softens and firms the epidermis, and treats stretch marks, wrinkles, eczema, acne and skin conditions.
RosewoodN4_1626x1626.png
 
SinSir said:
I've tried quite a few fretboard oils and methods. This stuff is my favorite.

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My only 'who asked you, anyway' comment is that the maker says it's abosorbed into the wood and doesn't dry out.

At least according to Dan Erlewine, who's written some pretty good books on guitar care (and whose band I remember from Ann Arbor BTW), you want something that stays on the surface and dries, instead of something that penetrates the wood.

So it's the exact opposite of what he recommends!

My guess is the man knows his stuff, but everyone's got their methods.

Think of it this way: If the wood absorbs a liquid what happens? It swells. You don't want the fretboard to swell, because the wood bunches up against the metal frets. This is what messed up the area next to the frets on my Martin many years ago when I used the edible type of mineral oil.

You also don't want rosewood's natural oil to be displaced by some chemical and brought to the surface. You want to keep it in the wood.

It makes a lot of sense when you think about Erlewine's advice.
 
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Lewguitar said:

According to this lab tech's post I found on Reddit: Dr. Ducks Axe Wax and most of the string and fretboard oils are just mineral oil with a lemon scent.​

Click to expand...
True. But they're made of a different type of mineral oil than the kind that's compatible with food.

They're actually scented naphtha, which is...lighter fluid/dry cleaning fluid, and a petrochemical. They're meant to be wiped on just to clean the surface and immediately wiped off.

Yet people leave it on for hours as though lighter/dry cleaning fluid is good for the wood.

You know why the wood looks nicely oiled after using it? Because it leeches oil from the wood itself and deposits it on the surface, which is how the dry cleaner uses naphtha to clean your suit, so it can be easily brushed off.

Ignorance is bliss, right?

I had a new PRS Artist II back in 1993 or so. After a while, a tech did a setup for me, and then did me the "favor" of letting lemon oil sit on the fretboard for a few hours.

It completely discolored the wood purfling inlays on the fretboard. Was I ever disappointed to see that. This was a guy with a great reputation, too.

Like I said, everyone's got their shtick when it comes to this stuff, and most of it is misinformation.
 
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