Put a small amount of oil on a microfiber cloth or directly on the fingerboard. F-One Oil penetrates and conditions the fretboard wood, and we’ve found a little goes a long way. It uses 100% natural oils and doesn’t use lemon oil extracts, waxes, silicone, petroleum distillates or water. We think Music Nomad’s F-One Oil is a great option as a conditioner for unfinished woods. After adding it to the fretboard you may notice the wood looks drier with some white marks – fear not, it's ready for you to put the goodness of a conditioner back in.īeware it's highly flammable and use in a well ventilated space due to fumes.

No we're not doing a Hendrix and setting light to it. If you do choose to use lemon oil, it must be wiped off immediately after application avoid excess.Īnd that last point is true of any fretboard conditioner when players complain of excess smell from the cleaning product it’s often because they’ve used too much rather than a little to check how much is absorbed before wiping off excess promptly.īefore treating with any oils, we like to use naphtha fluid as a cleaner – aka Zippo lighter fuel. As a result some opinion is divided on it. For more intensive cleaning, Lemon oil is consistently popular for removing dirt and the remnants of sweat from playing but can contain d-limonene, which has been argued to be too strong for guitar use. It’s good practice to wipe down your board and strings with a clean rag after any gig or practice session. These woods should never be left to get too dry and we’d always advise choosing conditioning and cleaning substances that are made from 100% natural ingredients to avoid any risk of long term damage to the wood’s integrity. There’s a wide selection of products out there for cleaning and nourishing untreated wood fingerboards. Any cleaner designed for untreated wood risks dulling the finish and damaging its protective qualities. It you have a maple ‘board you can use a lightly damp cloth to clean your fretboard. What happens next is dependent on whether you have an untreated wood ‘board (including rosewood, ebony, pau ferro, laurel, cherry, walnut, purple heart) or lacquered (usually maple). With our frets cleaned and polished it’s time to remove any protective tape and move on to the fingerboard.

Whichever system you use, take your time, follow the included instructions with the product for application and focus on one fret at a time before moving to the next one. Planet Waves offer a Fret Polishing System including fret polishing paper sheets and a cardboard template to protect the fretboard around each fret when polishing.Micro-Mesh is a finer alternative to sandpaper (and uses a different grading system) for precision work and offers a multi-grade fret polishing kit with fret protectors.The kits also includes fretboard guards and a microfiber cloth. Music Nomad offers the comprehensive Frine Fret Polishing Kit that includes a specially formulated polish with micro-fine polishing compounds to remove dirt, oil and oxidation.

You can protect them using masking / painter’s tape but there are other cleaning and polishing approaches available too. Traditionally, 0000 grade steel wire wool has been a popular choice for polishing guitar frets but it has a significant drawback it leaves tiny metal filings that get stuck on magnetic pickups.

Guitar fretboard image tools