It was more of a joke. I really don’t shop at Walmart but I actually like to take my wife to Cracker Barrel and then go people watching at Walmart for redneck date nights. It’s usually a good time lol.
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How to fix dry looking Pau Ferro?
- Thread starter Nephilymbass
- Start date
Yeah, you really don't want to moisturise it. Wood needs to be oiled to maintain a lustre and a protective finish. If the wood on your guitar looks dry, it needs oil. Telling someone to take their guitar into a hot, steamy shower room is just bad advice. Excessive humidity brings it's own problems. Trust me, basses don't need water. They need wax or oil and elbow grease.
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As any pro on here will tell you the oil doesn't protect it, unless you're using a drying oil.
We have different opinions on this, obviously, but I've had no problems doing what I do & I do not use oil!
You're free to use it all you like, but I'd rather moisturize it than oil it.
I think I'm done responding on these "oil my fretboard" threads, the opinions that get thrown around are just that, opinions.
I also don't fancy repeating myself!
We have different opinions on this, obviously, but I've had no problems doing what I do & I do not use oil!
You're free to use it all you like, but I'd rather moisturize it than oil it.
I think I'm done responding on these "oil my fretboard" threads, the opinions that get thrown around are just that, opinions.
I also don't fancy repeating myself!
I apologize, Perhaps I should have been more clear. This bass is actually pretty new and Im not very concerned about it being dry to the point where it’s going to crack or anything like that because almost every New Mexican fender I’ve seen with a pau ferro board the board looks very similar to it. Perhaps my pictures aren’t the best either. Either way I realize i used the description “dry looking” but I meant cosmetically not structurally If that makes sense. I’m not worried about the wood drying out on a bass that’s so new. I just want to make it look nicer
I'm just here to dispel the myth that oiling up your fretboard is protecting it & somehow moisturizing it.
Heck, I even saw one advise to soak it for hours, but thankfully a pro responded that it would be a horrible idea for the fret integrity.
Every time one of these threads kicks off it's the same old stories, I should have known better
Another guy recommends you wax it as he's telling me that steam would be a bad idea
The boiled linseed oil will actually protect it, but you really should moisturize it BEFORE you seal it in linseed oil. Otherwise it just stays dry under the dried oil film.
and almost no one mentions the spontaneous combustion issue
Heck, I even saw one advise to soak it for hours, but thankfully a pro responded that it would be a horrible idea for the fret integrity.
Every time one of these threads kicks off it's the same old stories, I should have known better
Another guy recommends you wax it as he's telling me that steam would be a bad idea
The boiled linseed oil will actually protect it, but you really should moisturize it BEFORE you seal it in linseed oil. Otherwise it just stays dry under the dried oil film.
and almost no one mentions the spontaneous combustion issue
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It just seems like you're operating under a different definition of moisture than the people you tend to end up disagreeing with.
You think that when people say that the wood is dry they're talking about the water content of the wood. Which is generally not something you want to mess with unless you live somewhere very dry or very humid. Putting oil on your wood doesn't do anything to change the water in the wood or how it responds to humidity.
But most people when they say their fretboard is dry mean that there's not enough oil in their wood. Wood naturally has some oil in it. Some woods have much more than others. Rosewood for example is super oily, which makes it difficult to glue unless you remove some of the oil from the surface with acetone or something.
Normally there's so much oil in rosewood that you never have to add oil to it. It's very difficult to get rid of all the oil that you find in a piece of rosewood. But if you do somehow, like by leaving it out in the sun and rain for a long time, when you eventually leech out all the oil, it will turn a pale grey, and the lignin in the wood will begin to degrade and the wood will disintegrate. This is what has happened to those old abandoned grey looking wooden buildings and old grey looking wooden fences that you can sometimes see falling apart.
It also happens very quickly to end grain cutting boards which have their oils leeched out by the constant washing with water and soap.
Again it's pretty weird to see it on something like a fretboard which doesn't see much of the kind of conditions that can cause the oils to be removed from it. But that's what this seems looks like, a piece of wood that doesn't have much oil in its surface.
Adding water to it won't make the wood look any less grey and powdery. And i guarantee that if you add a bit of mineral oil that grey powdery look will disappear immediately. But you will have to do it again occasionally because the mineral oil comes back out of the wood.
Yeah man. Nevermind that guy. He's been bent on correcting people and he didn't actually listen to your problem. I'm pretty sure he's never had the same problem you have.
You can just put some of whatever fretboard conditioning product on there and it'll look shiny and new just like everybody else does. They're mostly mineral oil and good smell, though. So you could just buy a bigger cheaper bottle of mineral oil and get the same effect. And like other people said make sure to avoid silicone.
You could put linseed oil or something like that which dries into a hard film on top of the wood and it will also look shiny and new that way, but it will feel slightly different so if you like the way your fretboard feels then think real hard about it first. The good thing about linseed and other drying oils is that you don't have to reapply them. They're a type of finish and they stay put pretty well.
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I use the same hunk of handkerchief so I don't dump a lot of oil into the board...
Another tip: On string change, I wipe down the board with my cloth and then use a white plastic bristle brush to clean board, especially the finger kank that will pile up against the frets... Wipe with paper towel after, then go back over with the handkerchief chunk.... I rarely ever have to 'rejuvenate' the cloth... It just doesn't take much at all to keep the board nice and slick feeling...
On my rosewood and BBQ maple boards, I'll initially pull a razor across fret space to smooth it too... Gets the hair off and smooth fret space with inlays and such.....
Never good to saturate a board with oil. Just a rub with a charged cloth on skrang change is enough... If you have to rub a bit firm for the wood to even look a bit wet, that's about enough mineral oil on the cloth...
BBQ Maple especially is torrefied.....ain't gonna absorb squat as it is mechanically stable after being in the suck oven... If you saturate with oil, capillary action will suck it into all spaces in the structure...
Another tip: On string change, I wipe down the board with my cloth and then use a white plastic bristle brush to clean board, especially the finger kank that will pile up against the frets... Wipe with paper towel after, then go back over with the handkerchief chunk.... I rarely ever have to 'rejuvenate' the cloth... It just doesn't take much at all to keep the board nice and slick feeling...
On my rosewood and BBQ maple boards, I'll initially pull a razor across fret space to smooth it too... Gets the hair off and smooth fret space with inlays and such.....
Never good to saturate a board with oil. Just a rub with a charged cloth on skrang change is enough... If you have to rub a bit firm for the wood to even look a bit wet, that's about enough mineral oil on the cloth...
BBQ Maple especially is torrefied.....ain't gonna absorb squat as it is mechanically stable after being in the suck oven... If you saturate with oil, capillary action will suck it into all spaces in the structure...
Yep, lemon scented mineral oil.If one read the data sheets on most high priced so called lemon oils, one might find they are almost all mineral oil...
Fret Doctor is okay. I bought a little bottle years ago and only recently used it up, but then I tried F-One oil and it just seems to works better. They look similar but for whatever reason with F-One I don't need to use as much or reapply it as often.
The issue with Fret Doctor was that after a week it looked like I hadn't oiled the wood at all and I'd have to do it again. I have an old acoustic guitar and an Epi 335 with particularly dry rosewood and no amount of Fret Doctor seemed to make them look 'not-dry' for more than a few days.
In contrast, I recently got a Gibson SG with the driest looking fretboard I've ever seen, but a quick pass with F-One darkened it several shades and made it look like rosewood is supposed to. More importantly, after two months of leaving it out on a stand it still looks good. I would've needed to use Fret Doctor 3 or 4 times to get the same result.
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OP, if you do anything based on the advice in this thread, definitely don't take your bass in the shower!
You guys are missing the mark, I didn't comment to soak it in the shower, just get the steam on the fretboard in the bathroom while you take a hot shower.
I couldn't hear the problem through my computer screen.
This turned into another debate.
Why would I have not experienced a dry fretboard?
Of course I have, I moisturize it!
I couldn't hear the problem through my computer screen.
This turned into another debate.
Why would I have not experienced a dry fretboard?
Of course I have, I moisturize it!
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Ladies and Gentlemen, some of these posts are treading the line of rule 1. Let's please ratchet down the snarkiness a bit.
I think this is symptomatic of the fact that dogma and sales pitches are oft used in place of any hard facts when it comes to fretboard treatments. Usually you have one camp that has the $3 Jim Dunlop lemon oil solution, the next camp has the $$$ Fret Doctor bore oil solution, the third a $free solution using something out the store cupboard, etc.
Youtube doesn't make this any easier. I saw a video recently of a pawn shop bought Squier Affinity Strat being 'upgraded'. Cue some dude wailing away on the fretboard and frets with steel wool, and then slopping on some sort of oil to 'hydrate' the fretboard. He probably learned his tricks of the trade from Internet forums.
And ultimately, what do people want? A fretboard that won't crack or show any signs of damage over time, or a dark fretboard that looks like a quality slab of rosewood of the sort not used on production line instruments since the '60s and '70s? What are people really chasing here? Is this really a lot of fraught conversation about a fairly trivial corner of instrument care, or is this an aesthetic concern? Do people want Pau Ferro to look like '60s pre-CBS rosewood boards perhaps?
I've not been clear enough in this thread. I like a darker looking fretboard with a subtle low-level glow and radiance to it. I've recently sorted out a dry-looking and dirty fretboard on my Epiphone Wildkat. It looked like this:
Sort of greasy in the popular spots (the previous dude loved first position Cowboy chords), but you can see dry looking wood near the frets. I wager this board probably didn't need anything done to it. It wasn't splitting or cracking, and none of the frets were unseated in any way. I'm not sure what other metrics I could use to determine the condition of the fretboard really. Is it hydrated enough? I don't know! I don't know how I would find out.
But, I don't want the fretboard to look dirty, unevenly greasy or to have that dry quality to it. Ideally I want a nice dark-looking board to make the inlays and binding 'pop', as well as the frets once I've polished them out.
This is after a few light applications of BLO and Danish oil, thinned out with mineral spirits. The mineral spirits help the oil penetrate a wee bit (from some fairly non scientifically robust tests on scraps of wood), and ensure that the oil either goes where it wants to go, evaporates, or is easy to remove. I use a very small quantity of oil overall. I remove excess after ten minutes or so. The wood may further barf out a bit more oil as well, so I always check for this. I then finish with a wood wax and buff.
This is because I want a discrete finish on the fretboards of my instruments. I like the feel and the look. I'm not worried about the welfare of the wood as such, though I imagine a layer of dried oil-derived finish and wood wax will hinder moisture transfer, either way.
Ultimately this is how I like to do it. This isn't necessarily how anybody else should do it.
Negative - it's simply people not being respectful towards each other in their replies. (And this wasn't aimed at you personally, you simply chose to quote me so I'm replying to you. Let's get this back on topic in a respectful way.)
Turnaround, thanks for the advice, but a couple follow-ups:
After I wipe it on then wipe off and 'burnish' it: Wipe it dry and buff till it's shiny?
And . . . . are Pau Ferro necks finished or left unfinished like a lot of ebony boards? How do I tell if it's finished, and if it is finished, is the oil treatment still useful?
Thanks !
After I wipe it on then wipe off and 'burnish' it: Wipe it dry and buff till it's shiny?
And . . . . are Pau Ferro necks finished or left unfinished like a lot of ebony boards? How do I tell if it's finished, and if it is finished, is the oil treatment still useful?
Thanks !
From personal experience, Fender factory Pau Ferro boards seem to have a dusting of something on them. You could see it on the board of my Mustang bass, as it arrived from the factory:
This might give you unexpected results if you try and put anything else over the top.
TBH we've had the discussions about fretboard treatment, I think it's alright if you don't overdo it, but don't fool yourself into thinking that the oil is protecting the wood (unless in the case of a drying oil).
Here's a bit about overdoing it & the affect it can have on the frets & re-fretting:
oil vs. water
Pay close attention to Turnaround's input, he's a pro.
I've read similar from pros on other sites.
Here's a bit about overdoing it & the affect it can have on the frets & re-fretting:
oil vs. water
Pay close attention to Turnaround's input, he's a pro.
I've read similar from pros on other sites.
