Cleaning and maintenance of an old ebony fretboard

[jcburn]

Hi everyone - what can I do to spruce up and old bass with an ebony fretboard that has wear marks from typical playing. Can I lightly rub with fine grade steel wool, and then can you lightly oil them like a rosewood board?
Thanks for any help.

[202dy]

Precisely.

Clean the fingerboard first with some naphtha on a rag. Then cut a credit card or something similar so that it has a square edge. Or you can use the edge of a small metal ruler. Carefully run that along both sides of the frets. You will be surprised at the amount of gunk and corrosion that you will remove.

0000 steel wool follows. Then apply your favorite oil. If you do not have a favorite oil, there are many discussions on this forum discussing oils.

[spz8]

You may want to use brass wool over steel wool, as the steel wool will shed lots of fine steel particles that may find their way to your pickups.