Moderators Ratae Corieltauvorum Posted December 4, 2009 Moderators Share Posted December 4, 2009 Get Woodwind Bore Oil for Ebony and Rosewood Oil for, well you get the point. Hmm, that's not the rosewood that guitarists know tho, not even particularly close Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members stormin1155 Posted December 4, 2009 Members Share Posted December 4, 2009 Im of the opinion that wood doesnt need to be babied, and if you hand oil doesnt cut it- then put some kind of other oil on it IMHO I have this ancient cutlery with rosewood handles, and theyve been through all kinds of hell and back- sitting underwater in sinks in grease and grime, through dishwashers using caustic washing powder, just years and years of crap and once you clean and dry them they look brand new... I totally agree. I've owned dozens of rosewood board guitars over the years and put all sorts of stuff on them (furnature polish, olive oil, tung oil, lemon oil, linseed oil, gun stock oil, and various products that were supposidly made for guitars). I've never encountered any problems with fretboards. Bottom line is that rosewood is a very durable wood, containing a lot of natural oils. All of the hype of "use this, don't use that, if you use that will make it turn to dust" is mostly hype and opinion. So if you are having good results with a particular product, I say keep using it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rchiav Posted December 4, 2009 Members Share Posted December 4, 2009 Cheetos....gives the neck old amber tint...on the cheap. AND, they taste good.... Man that reminds me of when I was a kid and one of my friend at the time woke up and was distressed when he picked up his guitar and noticed how yellow/orange his fingers were. He thought it was nicotine stains from the night before until he realized it was just Cheetos. About unfinished wood... being a wood worker, the real concern is having part of the wood exposed and able to take on or release moisture while the other side can't. If that happens, the wood will warp. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Eddie Posted December 4, 2009 Members Share Posted December 4, 2009 I totally agree. I've owned dozens of rosewood board guitars over the years and put all sorts of stuff on them (furnature polish, olive oil, tung oil, lemon oil, linseed oil, gun stock oil, and various products that were supposidly made for guitars). I've never encountered any problems with fretboards. Bottom line is that rosewood is a very durable wood, containing a lot of natural oils. All of the hype of "use this, don't use that, if you use that will make it turn to dust" is mostly hype and opinion. So if you are having good results with a particular product, I say keep using it. Two questions:Was this in a place with extreme climate changes?Was this over a long period of time?I have never had any problems with my guitars either, but that does not mean that problems won't develop without proper care. I have received a coupe of guitars with fretboards that looked a bit on the dry side. The last one was discontinued in 2006, so it had been stored who knows where for at least 3 years. A small amount of the Roche Thomas conditioner worked fine, and where I live there's no need to use more than a few drops a year, if at all. When I first got some guitars, in a couple of cases I actually applied two light coats.Without applying the conditioner I could have certainly used the guitar, and probably for 10 or 15 years without any serious problems. But investing $3 and a few minutes made it look better, and feel better. The latter may have been a placebo effect, or maybe not.I've used Lemon Oil in the past, as well as various other products. None compare in terms of actually conditioning the fingerboard. I still have a pretty big bottle of Old English. I could have kept using it as you mention, but fortunately I did some research, tried other products, and compared the results. And when the advice comes from people like Suhr, Erlewine, and others with decades of experience I like to think that they know what they're doing. A while ago I found pictures of rosewood fingerboards damaged by the weather. The board was cracked in various places. I also recall the stories by a luthier (Suhr?) and a client who liked his necks completely unfinished, and the problems this created (e.g., warped necks). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members stormin1155 Posted December 4, 2009 Members Share Posted December 4, 2009 Two questions: Was this in a place with extreme climate changes? Was this over a long period of time? I..... A while ago I found pictures of rosewood fingerboards damaged by the weather. The board was cracked in various places. I also recall the stories by a luthier (Suhr?) and a client who liked his necks completely unfinished, and the problems this created (e.g., warped necks). Yes, and yes. North Dakota and Iowa... climate change doesn't get much more extreme than that. The guitar I've owned the longest is an acoustic I bought back in 1973, and it's had just about everything imaginable on its fretboard.Now I HAVE had an acoustic guitar where the bridge cracked... not sure if it was due to drying out or the fact that it is a 100 year old Washburn parlor guitar.Don't get me wrong... I do believe in oiling rosewood boards to keep them from drying out. I think that there are a lot of diverse products that will work just fine. I haven't seen a lot of evidence that one is particularly better than the others. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mike-o Posted December 4, 2009 Members Share Posted December 4, 2009 As a lifelong EVH fan let me just say that he speaks out of his ass constantly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Into Nation Posted December 4, 2009 Members Share Posted December 4, 2009 My natural hand oils DESTROY strings. Light Mineral Oil purchased at your friendly neighborhood Drug Store is the same as Fast Fret without the fragrance (or the price). Elixir Nanonwebs cure my string problem, and CVS takes care of my rosewood. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Pope on a Rope Posted December 4, 2009 Members Share Posted December 4, 2009 You obviously don't get to see many historic buildings? You humorless twats all seemed to skip over and cut out the actual meat of my post. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Gas Hed Posted December 4, 2009 Members Share Posted December 4, 2009 Interesting thing is that there are no sebaceous glands on the human hands (i.e. our hands don't produce oils). Our hands get oily from touching other parts of the body. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jkater Posted December 4, 2009 Members Share Posted December 4, 2009 Natural hand oils is better for your playing. get as much of it as possible on your guitar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ihavenofish Posted December 4, 2009 Members Share Posted December 4, 2009 Interesting thing is that there are no sebaceous glands on the human hands (i.e. our hands don't produce oils). Our hands get oily from touching other parts of the body. mostly the face/forehead i think. fretboards are pretty durable and while maple gets dirty if its raw, you probably wont have issues. neck back is different, but theres alot of variables. sweat and oils vary greatly person to person, but so does the response to them by any given piece of wood. maple especially can be unpredictable and twist even when finished in airtight poly. i have one "raw" neck. my sx. it gets some lemon oil once in a while, which doesnt really protect it much. feels realy nice and hasnt gone to pretzl form yet. but really this is luck. it could just as easily been a board that wanted to twist. the oil (even lemon oil briefly) only serves to slow the transfer of water in an out of the wood. "hand" oil would be just fine, assuming you dont sweat acid that damages the wood fibres. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fretmonster Posted December 4, 2009 Members Share Posted December 4, 2009 Im of the opinion that wood doesnt need to be babied, and if you hand oil doesnt cut it- then put some kind of other oil on it IMHO I have this ancient cutlery with rosewood handles, and theyve been through all kinds of hell and back- sitting underwater in sinks in grease and grime, through dishwashers using caustic washing powder, just years and years of crap and once you clean and dry them they look brand new... Not to refute your main point, but rather a clarification of your comparison with cutlery. Obviously cured and treated in a different manner than wood for guitars which is cured and treated to vibrate across the spectrum of bass, mid and treble tones, or so I was told in a recent HC video on guitar building.Dramatic shifts in humidity and temperature can seriously damage wood instruments causing warped necks and worse. A few years ago, I was in a small guitar shop here in Las Vegas that is known for repairs (Advanced Guitar). I saw a Gibson Les Paul body that had broken open and assumed somebody had done a Pete Townsend on it - it looked horrible and beyond repair. (It had the whole dry rot thing going on.) The shop owner (Jim) explained that the guitar belonged to a guitarist that played for one of the Casino Stage productions locally, had recently relocated to Vegas from the Bahamas where he had lived and worked as a musician for years, and that the dramatic change in humidity (from humid to dry) caused this guitar to break open, or explode as he described it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Eddie Posted December 7, 2009 Members Share Posted December 7, 2009 Thanks for your reply stormin1155 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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