Cleaning Your Guitar’s Fretboard
If you have had your guitar for a number of years and have never taken the time to clean up the fretboard, it may just be time for you to take a look at this little guide on how to go about doing just that.
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What will you need in order to do this?
1. A clean rag or cloth. micro-fiber are my favorite.
2. Steel wool – the finest you can find.
3. An alternative to steel wool are plastic scrubbing pads if you are nervous about using steel wool on your fretboard.
4. Oil for the fretboard’s wood. Lemon or some kind of furniture oil works fine.
The first thing that I like to do is to take the cloth and give the guitar’s fretboard a good wipe down. Most of the built up grime should come off fairly easily.
From there, take the steel wool (or the alternative plastic scrubbers) and CAREFULLY polish the fretboard in a motion that is parallel to the frets. As long as you are very careful, you should not damage the fretboard itself.
Once you have all the frets polished, go over the fretboard one last time with the cloth. You should see even more grime come off into the rag and the frets and fretboard become smoother and less dirty.
One final note is that if you are using the steel wool, it will leave behind little bits of metal that can easily get stuck to your pickups due to the magnets. I always take a cloth and completely cover my pickups while doing this to avoid and shavings getting stuck on the pickups.
Once you have it all cleaned up, apply a small amount of oil to the fretboard using a separate cloth. This will help to protect the wood and keep your guitar’s neck and fretboard in tip top shape for many years.
And really, that is all there is to it! My recommendation now is to always make sure to give your fretboard a good clean up with a cloth everytime you change your strings. Changing your strings regularly and giving it a good wipe down every time will not give the dirt a chance to build up and come to a point again where steel wool is needed.
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