Darkening My Fretboard

**vinnyv1k** · 03-01-2016, 06:19 PM

Oiling fretboards has always been a debate. I would never dye one. Wipe on wipe off once a year I think is beneficial. I have never had a binding fret nib crack. You never want to pickle the fretboard. You want to be careful with older guitars with very dry fretboards. I recently bought a 91 X500 and the ebony board was super dry. I oiled the board and it was sucking it up like a sponge. A couple days later the neck binding developed a couple cracks I am sure from the oil expanding the fretboard so be careful on older dried out boards. If your guitar is new I think it is a good yearly practice. If your guitar is very old and never has been oiled use a extreme light coat and don't let it soak in. I know for a fact that Gibson puts a coat of mineral oil on their fretboards as part of their final guitar setup.
Ebony is very hard so refretting is more difficult as it chips very easy. If you oil it you have less chance of fretboard chipping on a refret but if you need a fret glued in then you may have more of a problem their. Kind of a double edge sword thing. Damned if you do damned if you don't. Personally I like a nice dark fretboard so I oil them once a year.
I know Patrick was a firm believer of never oiling a board. I guess it is a personal thing. Some people like their shoes polished and some like the natural scuffed up look. I will say no oil is better than too much oil.

**Longways to Go** · 03-01-2016, 07:24 PM

a wee bit of lemon oil sure makes the dark woods look nice.

**Thecytochromec** · 03-02-2016, 02:51 PM

Originally Posted by AlsoRan

I had not decided on a luthier yet. I was going to ask around at the guitar show at the end of April.

Right now, I take my guitars over to Murphy's Music Center in Irving Texas. They installed the wiring harness and Gibson '57 pickups upgrade on my Sheraton II. They also cleaned the contacts on my Gibson Explorer when the neck pickup ceased having an output.

The guitar repair technician ( I don't know if he rises to the level of the title "Luthier") is experienced and seemed to know his stuff.

I would probably take the guitar over to Fort Worth to Lamb's Music. They have done a lot of great guitar repair work and I KNOW their guitar repair guy knows his stuff. He fixed a couple of cosmetic issues and cracks and I could not tell they were ever there. He should be able to darken the fretboard but I don't know if anyone would take the care and attention to detail that I would have since I would be paranoid about discoloring an inlay or the binding - that is my biggest fear along with maybe doing long-term damage to the wood.

Hope this helps!

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I'll keep this in mind when I need some work done on one of my guitars. I do have a high fret on my Gitane 250M but I may go over that with a luthier/friend.