Clean that rosewood fretboard

[Jus Lukin]

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Edited February 22, 2022 by Jus Lukin

[thebassmandave]

I know this is quite an old thread, but I was looking around the web for info on this myself and wanted to share the method that helped me remove some wax residue left on the rosewood fingerboard of my Musicman Stingray.
The residue was the result of wax left behind on the open pores from using a Gorgomyte cloth.

I'm not knocking the product (because I've successfully cleaned rosewood fingerboards with it before), but maybe it was an old one, or the air got to it, but either way it left behind flecks in the wood grain and I researched ways of removing it, before putting the job off for a while.

Until today.

I used an unused soft toothbrush and Dunlop 01 fingerboard prep and a clean microfiber terry cloth.

I sprayed the fingerboard prep onto the cloth and then rubbed it into the fingerboard to start to soften around the wood pores.

Next I sprayed the toothbrush bristles with the prep and (gently) worked the toothbrush into and around the pores. I started working along the woodgrain, but found going gently from side to side seemed to effectively remove the wax like a splinter.

A word of caution: I tried using a toothbrush on an old Aria Pro 2 bass I had and it left scratch marks - so go do not apply too much pressure (remember: Gently Bentley 😉).

It took quite a while, but to me it was well worth the effort as I got nearly all of the wax out.

After the toothbrush, I gave the entire fingerboard another wipe with the cloth sprayed with the prep just to remove any small debris and give it a once over.

I then wiped the fingerboard with a clean part of the cloth and liberally applied the Dunlop 02 fretboard conditioner allowing it to soak into the wood pores of the fingerboard for a couple of minutes before wiping away the excess with another clean microfiber cloth.

After that, I polished the frets and put new strings on.

I rinsed the toothbrush bristles with washing up liquid (acts as degreaser) and dried it out so I could use it again.

I know there are quite a few different ways that people have got results from this so I wanted to share mine.

Hope it helps. 🙂

All The Best!

Dave
 

[Paul S]

1 hour ago, thebassmandave said:

I rinsed the toothbrush bristles with washing up liquid (acts as degreaser) and dried it out so I could use it again.

Good man.  I'd put up with the aftertaste.  Or, better still, use Mrs S's toothbrush when she was at work.

More seriously, thanks for good report   

[LeftyJ]

I did roughly the same as @thebassmandave when I recently took delivery of a Warwick Streamer LX4 with a rather gunky fingerboard. I started with a Stanley blade, gently scraping off the worst of it. I then used a toothbrush to clean some off, and to get into the wide open pores of the wenge fingerboard. I then used the Dunlop 01 fretboard cleaner and prep on a piece of cloth (the "genuine Fender Custom Shop" one ), and repeated the brushing to clean the dirt out of the pores in the wood that had come loose. Before oiling up the fingerboard, I taped off the fingerboard and gave the frets a good polishing, and afterwards finished with the Dunlop 01 fingerboard oil. Really happy with the result 

For the fret polishing I use these pads I got from Thomann: https://www.thomann.de/gb/micro_mesh_soft_pads_set.htm 

Edited February 3, 2021 by LeftyJ