Cleaning the fretboard

Try a little naptha, aka lighter fluid and a good scrub. Scrape the stubborn stuff off with a credit card, and wash your hands before you play, ya dirty heathen!

 

But for serious, it's normal accumulation of oils and dead skin that you put off while rubbing your digits furiously against an abrasive material.

 

Ernie Ball Wonder Wipes work well to clean and condition your fretboard. I like them a lot.

Make sure you get the grunge off the fretboard, by whatever means. Left alone, the moisture held by that gunk can ruin your fretboard. Granted, it takes a while, but I've seen rosewood turn spongy from fretboard grime (nope, not on one of mine).

 

I use Windex to clean, Gibson Luthier's Choice to condition.

Flitz on the frets.

 

What wood & is it coated?

 

Dark brown would likely be rosewood & quite likely uncoated. (Unless it's maple & REALLY dirty.)

I clean my rosewood with my fingerboard conditioning oil (I use PURE tung oil); lightly coat the wood, lightly scrub with an old toothbrush, wipe it all off with a clean rag.

 

i believe when reading one of my bass manuals ... they suggested .. and i've done this with great success ...
for RoseWood ...

Lemon Oil ... use #0000 stell wool ... i put the lemon oil right on the steel wool ... try to go up/down ... going across the grain too hard might scratch ...

then wipe with a clean terry rag ... repeat until clean ...

then apply some lemon oil with a clean cloth , gently wipe of excess ... let sit over night .. wipe off any remaining excess ..

be gentle , take your time ...

the lemon oil help re-hydrate the wood .... as it dries out it will start to bow ..

of course , now for the first time ever , i have a coated maple neck ... have had rosewood , ebony , wenge , purple heart ( no oil on that .! ) over the decades ..

happy cleaning ...!! DC

 

This is a pretty common topic here, do a search for "lemon oil".

Real lemon oil is good, but most "lemon oil" wood finish products are lemon-scented mineral oil. Mineral oil will at least prevent the wood from cracking and give some moisture resistance, but it tends to stay gummy over time and isn't a great choice. Pure tung oil or boiled linseed oil is a better bet for most people. Beware of anything with a name like "oil finish", since such products often contain varnish of some sort as well, which may not be what you want (too hard & glossy). Some don't even contain any real oil at all, they're just thinned-down varnishes.

Reid

EDIT: Obviously that's really about final oiling more than cleaning, but you can clean with the oil if the grime isn't too bad. If the oil doesn't cut it, naphtha (lighter fluid) is the usual choice, but paint thinner or turpentine (my favorite for fragrance!) can be used.

 

Once you've cleaned it with any kind of solvent, you really should apply some kind of oil to the wood or it will dry out and crack sooner. This is especially true in warm, dry environments (since you mentioned LV).

Reid

 

Awesome! I love a nice sheen on a rosewood board.

 

Avoid steel wool. It ends up on the pickups. Minute bits get stuck in the wood grain and end up as painful metal splinters in your fingers.

Use a ScotchBrite pad. Very light abrasion, nonmetallic, no shedding.

Take it to Ed Roman and he'll tell you how much it sucks.

 

Lemon oil {the real stuff}, not lemon scented plege, and a coarse terry type cloth, you know like a WASH cloth, this brings me to the point of keeping your instrument clean. If the fretboard was that bad off, I don't even want to know what kind of shape the strings are in ! And windex on wood, come on...

 

I use this stuff that I get at my local music shop called "Guitar Honey" which is designed specifically for cleaning fretboards. I just spray down the fretboard and scrub it with a paper towel each time I change the strings (once every 6 months to a year).

I just checked the bottle and it's made by Gerlitz. Their website has all sorts of guitar care products on it.

 

I use Dr. Duck's AxWax oil on the fretboard. For nasty frets, I'll mask beside each fret and use a bit of Brasso metal polish with a Dremel rotary tool's soft pad.

I also like to dull the shiny finish on the back of the neck, by buffing it down with a dry ScotchBrite pad. This prevents my thumb and palm from "sticking" to the glassy surface.

 

Been using it for 25 years with no problems. It dries quickly and safely removes dirt and gunk. Follow it up with some Luthier's Choice and it's good to go.

Now recommending using anything abrasive such as steel wool or Scoth Brite seems a little more dangerous to me.