Do you have to take off strings to apply lemon oil on a fretboard?

[Skarekrough]

Re: Do you have to take off strings to apply lemon oil on a fretboard?

Windex does not harm the rosewood of the fingerboard in any way.

But techs that want to charge you more are free to disagree.

The simple question is: do you care for something that works, or do you care to pay your tech.

The answer is as always, yours.

In small doses the effect will be negligible. But if you used Windex on a piece of wood weekly over a long period of time the effect would likely be noticeable. I have windowsills in my house that were cleaned weekly with Windex over the years and the finish has dulled considerably; they're quite ugly.

For rosewood fretboards I'll typically hit the heavy gunk with a toothbrush dipped in a small amount of water; just enough to permeate and loosed it up.

I've never found lemon oil to be worth a damn. I use Guitar Honey and can see the difference when it's done.

And, quite frankly, I don't think removing gunk is the kind of thing that you could convince someone that they needed a tech for.

 

[MikeS]

Re: Do you have to take off strings to apply lemon oil on a fretboard?

The long term and continued use of any cleaning agent that contains alcohols, ammnonia, bleach, and other solvents will damage unfinished wood and can damage finishes. Best case is that the alcohols dry out unfinished wood over a long period of time. It's also noteworthy that most all household cleaners contain dyes and perfumes that I personally wouldn't want on my unfinished wood surfaces, especially those with thousand dollar price tags. Just a thought.