How to DEEP CLEAN your Fretboard - Full Tutorial
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- Опубликовано: 31 июл 2024
- Your fretboard looks like it was recently found on the Titanic wreck? or maybe you just bought your dream guitar for an awesome price to discover that the previous owner never changed strings in 5 years? Don't worry! In this video you'll learn how to make the fretboard look as good as new - or even better - in some easy to follow steps and in a totally safe way for you and your guitar.
Hope you enjoy it!!
Full restoration video of this guitar: • Restoring an old and s...
Useful products for cleaning and setup your guitar:
Nut lubrication: amzn.to/3mxOVnY
0000 Steel Wool: amzn.to/2L1nSV0
3m Scotchbrite pads: amzn.to/3ps8ZtP
Fretboard protectors: amzn.to/2WPwnoZ
Lemon oil for ebony/rosewood fretboards: amzn.to/2KURljz
Cleaner for all your guitar: amzn.to/3n2uHTX
Feeler Gauges: amzn.to/38k83ki
Measuring caliper/vernier: amzn.to/2Wt4CT2
Set of allen keys: amzn.to/38aYaFG
Guitar capo: amzn.to/38DIeMk
Clip on tuner (great for quick tuning during the setup): amzn.to/3ptD1h4
Plug in tuner (for precise intonation adjustment): amzn.to/3pumXvg
The background music is composed and recorded by me and is available for free here - in order of appearance:
Powerful dark metal - Guitar backing track
• Powerful slow Dark Met...
Cool groovy Jazz Funk - Guitar Backing Track
• Cool groovy Jazz Funk ...
Awesome Face Melting Hard Rock - Guitar backing track
• Awesome face melting H...
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Greetings from Argentina!
Juan Pablo - Inspiring Tracks
#fretboard #guitar #restoration 
Видеоклипы
Some people asked how to proceed with set neck guitars or in case you don't want to remove the neck but still need use this cleaning method. Here I have another video where I show exactly that. Hope you like it! ruclips.net/video/Odq2n6bGbpA/видео.html
If you also want the see ALL the restoration process of this guitar, from the beginning to the end, it can be found here: ruclips.net/video/uP6cB8ra62U/видео.html
derfischerläuftdavon
Thank you! I don't have an electric guitar yet however a couple of cheap secondhand ukuleles which I got had some issues. Appreciate your effort!
Just to clarify: the lemon oil isn't actually lemon oil. It's a wood "conditioner" with lemon scent.
You are totally right
yeah dont actually just squeeze a lemon onto your fretboard. thats bad.
Dang, no wonder my fretboard has a load of stains. Well, all in the learning experience i guess.
Right! It has to be a mineral based oil and NO natural oil!
Natural oils deteriorate over time: get sticky and rancid.
Wait , I cannot use pink lemonade from Taco Bell on my fretboard? How can I make my guitar sound "sweet"?
This showed up in my recommended immediately after just changing strings
Isn't that the way it always goes!
It is no coincidence...That happened because you either said something about changing guitar strings, cleaning it, or said something else guitar related out loud and your computer's mic picked up the audio, or you typed something into your browser and it recorded your keystrokes. Either way, big brother knew what you wanted and put this video in your recommendations. It's no coincidence, friend, that's how they get you. Here's how you test it... Type in or repeat the phrase dog and dog food at least 10 times in front of your computer and when you open a browser, you will be inundated with dog food ads. They're listening to everything we say, man! They say you can turn it off, but I'm not so sure!
That sucks
Tough
Did he sneak a little Steve Vai in that riff?
Nice job man, what you did in this videos is exactly how I started my journey to becoming a luthier. I started by just cleaning and doing minor repairs on mine and my friend's guitars then I learned how to do fret jobs, full setups and electronics. Now I have my own custom guitars shop, you can totally do it if you keep doing what you are doing.
Sorry about the late response, luckily the channel is growing and keeping track of all the comments is a lot getting harder. Thanks for your words! they are really encouraging and maybe in the future I'll follow your steps. I recently stained the fretboard of a brand new Gretsch with great results and fret jobs are comming soon! Thanks againg and best wishes for your business!!!
Great video! Helps a ton since I'm completely new to working on guitars. I just picked up a used guitar for cheap at a garage sale, was in pretty rough shape at first but after doing some work on it turned out perfect. Thanks!
That looked incredible when you were finished! Removing the tape was oddly satisfying haha
Thanks! And yes, I think that's the best part. Cheers!!
Nice vid, result looks really good.
I like working on my fretboard every couple of months just cause I really the smooth feel of a well maintained board.
Also you didn't mention but steel wool comes in different sizes and the coarse stuff will ruin a neck. Its graded with zeros. the more zeros the finer it is. I use 0000 or 00000 only. Nothing coarser.
Yes, this is what my guy is telling me. You want the least coarse steel wool you can find. Four or five zeroes.
You can clean glass with quad too. Learned this from my car detailing research living in sappy areas of the country.
if i was using 0000 could i then not worry about my polished maple fretboard when I'm cleaning my frets?
Excellent tutorial ! In a guitar maintenance and repair online course, the guy showed the use of a cabinet scraper directly on the wood and he also recommended the use of turpentine. That just didn´t resonate with me..... I´m glad I decided to check out those somewhat aggressive methods and then I found this tutorial. Thank you much Juan Pablo !
Glad you found it useful! There's several methods to do this but I'll not use scrapers or solvents, and certainly not recommend it to less experienced people at all. Cheers!!!
I’ve been a guitar player for damn near 15 years, and until recently I had never once oiled a fretboard. What an insane difference it makes, it almost feels like a completely new instrument. Going to start oiling every unfinished board I got.
that bad horsie remix as ur backing track is amazing btw
Great video man. So incredible the end result
Nice snare drum sound in the funk song. Great video and I like the polishing part and the magnet works well . ThanK YOU
I like how you use a hard drive magnet to clean up the steel wool. Very cool!
I've found Music Nomad's F One oil will get that gunk off, with a little elbow grease, and hydrate at the same time. I've gotten away from using steel wool directly on a fretboard and stopped using lemon oil but your end result is amazing. Might try the direct wool on a really nasty one I get next time. Thanks for the great video!
Glad to see you cutting the masking tape at a 45 degree angle with the point under the fret. Great job! 👍
exactly the video I was looking for! thanks man
Awesome job. Definitely makes me want to clean all of mine! Thanks for the tips IT!
Happy to help! Cheers!!!
Nice! I use alcohol as well, and to protect the neck I take a plastic place mat (or thin sheet of plastic) and place it between th strings and the fretboard. This way I can put more pressure on the top of the strings when cleaning the top, and place the rag underneath the strings to clean the underside without drying out the fretboard.
Awesome !!! I own 7 bass guitars and 3 acoustics. Evertime I change strings I always do a deep cleaning like this, i turn on some music and it relaxes me. 😌
That's great! I also find it very relaxing, and nothing compares to play a nice and clean guitar. Cheers!
Me too brother . . . very Therapeutic. oNe LovE from NYC
Thanks brother. I decided to get my Peavy PXD Tragic 1 out of retirement and get it looking good again. I'm gunna put a sustainiac in the neck pickup pocket, wrap the guitarbin a galaxy wrap, and got all new hardware, volume and tone pots, and a new 3 way switch. This video helped alot since I didn't realize I'd need steel wool lol.
Excellent Video.... you can substitute using fret erasers to buff/sand problem frets and a dremel with a buff wheel & polishing compound to make those frets shine. I usually apply 3-5 coats of Womby's Lemon Treatment and let it soak for hours before re applying. Eventually the pores will close which is what you really want. Nice "Bad Horsie" too.
Seems like the ideal way to clean up the frets and board ... I've just started doing this with friends guitars . I'm sure they'll be pleased with the final job ... Thank you :-)
There's lot of methods out there, this is the one I've found works the best without using volatile chemicals or razor blades as some people suggest. Maybe takes some elbow grease but is safe and the results are great. Cheers!!!
Awesome man! Thank you very much for this video, I've been already watching a lot of the tutorials about cleaning the fretboard but they were not efficient really. But your vid made my day! Well done, keep up doing great job.
Wow thanks! I'm really glad you liked the video and hope it helps you to get your fretboard as good as new. Cheers!
Best vid I’ve seen on this so far, thank you!
Thanks! Glad you liked it!
Love a good instrument cleaning season. It surely relaxes me.
Same same.
This one of my projects too do on my guitar I’m restoring that I found at a job I did while I was doing fire and water restoration
great help in 35 years i never cleaned a guitar except polish the body. learn something every day thanks.
If you clean them regularly there's no need for a really deep clean like this. This is a somewhat extreme case (I've seen a lot worse though) I'm glad you liked the video!
@@InspiringTracks mine get this dirty and I clean them about every 3months. Any tips to keep it clean longer?
This is awesome! I have a couple guitars I have never treated the neck. Been years.
Great Video! Thank you for spending the time and effort!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Superb video, thanks alot and well done! 👍🏻
Ahora mismo vengo de comprarme una guitarra usada, casualmente también es una Gio, y a pesar de que tiene muy poco uso está llena de porquería de estar guardada. En breve pondré en práctica este tutorial. Muchas gracias!
Beautifully done!
Very nice job I like the way you did the fritz the fruits of a shiny the word came out really nice good job
Thank you! Cheers!
I found this clip very useful. Keep it up!
Thanks!!
AWSOME WORK!YOU ROCK! Thanks for your tips!
Glad you liked it!
So satisfying 😁 definitely trying on my PRS
Cool, thanks for the vid. I actually used a 0000 steel wool to clear the fretboard of about 50y old bass. Nothing else worked. :)
I played for years and never cleaned my guitars, guess I kinda thought all that dirt and funk added to the “mojo”, lol. It don’t. The last couple of years I been cleaning up all my stuff and man, they play so much better. This is a great video with lots of good tips. I do use lighter fluid as a solvent though. You may be tempted to skip the fret polishing but don’t skip it! It has a big effect on how bends feel and really how it feels all the time. Well worth the effort and again, good video. 👍
Didn't you notice the loss of sustain with a really dirty fretboard? That's what made me clean mine when I was a beginner.
@@castleanthrax1833 - not much really. I didn’t know the difference then but I do now. I was pretty good about changing strings though.
The wearing down of the body is in my opinion the only thing that I like. But when the fret karde dirty it's just a pain rather then adding to the beuty lol
It hurts my soul seeing neglected guitars that has years of gunk and matte frets.
Diadarrio fret polishing cloths work like magic!
Really great information presented here. What a transformation. I love doing my own Set-ups and maintenance. Enjoyed your video & Hit the like-button. oNe LovE from NYC
Thanks! Glad you liked it!
Did this to my maybe 15 yo used Les Paul guitar, the steel wool on the fretboard. Plays like a PRS
I know that cuz I went to the guitar store to buy strings to do this and saw this PRS Custom 24
your string posts are very neat! hope you can show us how to do it hehe
looks good! i use some ernie ball wipes for the fret board, and for the frets i use some import tool from japan thats kinda like a eraser and its polishes.
Awesome toturial! Everything is well explained and filmed and the final result is amazing. Thanks a lot for this!
Tutorial not toturial
Very good job! This is similar to how I clean and condition all of my fretboards. However, I speed up the process using a Dremel tool for the polishing, etc.
That's awesome! The dremel works great but I think I'm a little more old school (or masochist) and like to do it manually lol
@@InspiringTracks what kind of cloth are you using when applying the polishing compound?
I use a 2" buffing wheel on a 1\2 in. drill! My dremel doesn't seem to have enough power to do the job I like
Tried steal wool, and really really don't like it at all. Big mess without a good finished looking result. Heavy polishing compound like that used on aluminium fuel tanks works much better for me.
First thing I do to raw necks is sand ALL the varnish off immediately, mist with water , let dry in the sun, or a warm place, then recoat the back of the neck with a high quality furniture polish, let dry and soak in, in the sun.
The differance on the neck is off the chain!!! They don't make a coating good enough to replace the true patina of real wood.
Pick and quadruple 0 steel wool to remove stains on rosewood fretboard.
I never knew that could be used to do the job. Thanks for the insight!! 👍👍
You can wrap cheese cloth around flat blanks of wood to polish the frets. I staple the cloth into the back of the board. Each board is roughly 1/4" thick 6" long, 2" wide. I use three different blanks each with a different grade of polish soaked into the cloth. No need to tape off the fretboard. Also the wire wool used for the initial clean should be 0000 grade..which is very fine.
Okayyyy but those instrumentals are vibeyyyy my guyyyy
Now THIS IS A USEFUL VIDEO! thanks
fantastic, thank you for sharing !
Good info. Nice music.
I use baby-oil for conditioning. It‘s a mineral based oil, does not deteriorate over many many years, has no smell, and was already in my household before the first guitar. It‘s basically exactly the same as lemon oil, but without the lemon scent.
For cleaning two times per year I just use a damp microfiber cloth. Not much to clean because I wash my hands every time before playing, and after playing I clean the strings with a dry microfiber rag.
I’m definitely going to try this!
Great result! If you are not really enjoying it, I recommend using a dremel for the fret polishing. It's much easier and 10 times faster :)
Good job, man! Great video!
Thanks!!
I love this! Thanks again!
Glad you like it!
Great Job!
Thanks man!! Its really help me
That's great! Cheers!!
For years I use those products to clean house, floor... Just in the scale. Perfect and pratical.
For around 25 years or so, I've used Windex to clean my fretboard. Saturate a clean cloth with the Windex and run the fretboard until the rag is no longer discolored by the old oils/residues that are being lifted out of the fretboard by the ammonia. Then, I oil it with Trombone slide oil. I prefer the slide oil because it's a thin, clean oil that is causes no tarnishing and leaves no residue on brass instruments. One of my guitars in a 1991 Jackson RR1 that I purchased new. Played the hell out of it, in a band for around 15 years, and the fretboard still looks basically brand new.
Windex or any glass cleaner with ammonia on wood is a great way to damage it and dry it out super fast. Terrible advice!
IDC how long you've been doing, but you've been doing it wrong. It's also a great way to make white-out ebony fretboards.
You could've told people to use warm soapy water, and it wouldnt have been such a bad advice.
At least is you use wood soap you're not drying out the wood with solvents.
Please use some common sense, and use non-solvent based cleaning products and always oil the fretboard after cleaning!
Great tutorial!!!
Glad you liked it!
Nice work doctor... Looks great
Thanks!!!
Excellent Video-Thanks!
Glad you enjoyed it!
That shinning fret looks satisfying
Thanks!
Nice Job Dude!! bravo
Thanks!!!
I bought a guitar today which was really dirty and I went to guitar center and they wanted to charge me a lot of money to clean it so I did it by myself and it turn out to be amazing I'm proud of my self and how good it came out
That's great! Nothing beats the satisfaction of doing it yourself!
Probly did a better job than the lazy bored guy working at guitar center for minimum wage would have done too
Great video. Looks Great !!!
Thanks!!!
Hey bro awesome video man...i did this to my bass guitar like 2yrs ago and ill have to do it soon with a string change...one questio though...can i use those noral materials the buff auto vehicles to biff the body of my bass guitar...just wanted to find out before i tried and maybe damage the finish...thanks very much
OK. So this video, I trust. Thanks for sharing in such detail.
Thanks! Glad you liked it!!
Awesome results mate, I just hope you washed your hands before dinner! keep up the great work, Subbed!
I use johnsons baby oil on rosewood fretboard, poly finish body, and all metal, with strings on. Just a couple drops on a soft rag. Or a paper towel for fretboard. Wipe off oil on body with super soft cotton cloth. I use old washcloth. It removes gunk. Once a month or so.
Gonna do this to my guitars next weekend
Good luck! You won't regret it!
Great video man thank you very much
Glad you liked it!!
Thanks! Another tip - bend the steel fret protector at a right angle at one end. Makes it more stable to work with and gives more access to the ends of the frets.
I remember seeing someone in a video drilling a small hole at both ends of the protector and inserting a rubber band that way he could slide it to the next fret
@@alonzobarragan5658 like a capo
Thanks for the nice video!
you're welcome!
I love seeing perfectly wound strings like at the end
My OCD wouldn't let me do otherwise lol. It also helps a lot with tuning stability
Excellent using plectrum I use Stanley knife blade
Thank you 😊
I use micro mesh it just works for me, plus for the neck through instruments with uncovered pick ups I don't have to worry about taping the pickups off as much still do out of habit and because the chance of the loose fret material may get in there
That´s great! Steel wool is kind of the nuclear option and I reserve it only for realy dirty fretboards like in this case to avoid the problems you mentioned. Cheers!!
@@InspiringTracks figured came out looking great. For bolt ons steel wool works fine cause you don't have to worry about the pick ups so much.
I have a question my les paul has a glossy nech and when i am sliding it is stopping my palm what do i do with that ?
I have a bit of mould build up on my maple neck against the frets. What’s the best way to clean a maple neck from scratch ?
I know nothing of guitar care, but inherited an old acoustic that's dirty all over. Will change the strings soon, and this taught me nigh everything I needed to know about cleaning that gross fretboard while I'm at it (watched some other videos, little additional info). Plus, watching this at twice the normal speed, the music is very distracting :D
My guitar neck looked similar. The color was actually a moldy green that came off the rag.
He mentions POLISHING WOOD but just the frets...reminds me of Senior dance when we setup a place in a janitor's office and much polishing of was done, more than 75 seniors were polished that night. Ole Debbie would be 66 now but she could police a dome stadium and suck a backetball through a drinking straw...good memories...Debbie was a queen.
Hey Man, nice job, I noticed that the hardwares such as the tuners and string trees are also cleaned, what did you use to clean those?
Very nice video
Lemon oil (if it really is lemon) also dries the rosewood so don't worry about the solvent when cleaning... and after all, in the end, if the lemon oil is properly rubbed in, it brings certain amount of moisture back... even it also tend to slightly dry the rosewood fretboard.
Very nice video!!
But, isn't it dangerous to remove the neck from the guitar? Doesn't it get 'misadjusted', with fret noises...?
Is the Dunlop 65 Guitar Polish (link in description) and Cleaner what you used to polish the frets with the protectors?
11:33 is it just the lighting or are those frets sunken on the left side ?
This is so satisfying
Thanks!!
I realize that for illustrative purposes so maybe my tip isn't for this video, but when I use a magnet to pick up metal shavings, I put the magnet inside of a plastic shopping bag! While over a trashcan, turn the bag inside out & tie when done. Trapping the shavings inside the bag.
That's a really great tip. Thanks!
Is there any house hold things to use to polish the fret wood except the lemon stuff
I like murphys wood soap that stuff does wonders on maple necks
My les paul has a glossy neck and when i slide my thumb or my palm get stuck how to fix that ?
it made my day!
Thanks!
Awesome video! Thank you so much!
Do you know how do I clean a Moldy rosewood neck scale?
It´s a strat I don´t play for years and kept inside of its bag...
Thank you so much!
If its only mold and the wood is in good condition you can use some Scotchbrite pads. They are mildly abrasive and doesn´t leave any debris. I reserve the steel wool only for fretboards with really heavy dirt or the wood in bad conditions, like in this case
@Leatherjacks
some disinfecting products may help you, such as chlorine wipes, etc. try not to get the wood too wet.. also try to use a synthetic conditioner for the wood.. the silicone lubricants that leave a dry surface discourage mold creation, it repels any kind of moisture.. good luck
The difference in sound between a dirty and a clean fretboard is significant - at times my bass sounded like I put fresh strings on it when the fretboard was cleaned! I think a sound comparison with the same strings would strike the point home. Great video.
Thoughts on using a magic eraser for the rosewood?
That is amazing job. Can you give me one advice plese. Is it pisible, and how can i polish freats to a miror shine like yours, but without any paste, or other chemicals aplaying on the freatboard?
Sory on my bad English.
get some micromesh from stew mac. it's a bit expensive but it works
Have you ever tried micro mesh? You can polish your frets much nicer with it