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! kzfaq.info/get/bejne/hcqhZdFnx63GoHU.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: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/q7ZmlqVp18eaYok.html

Just to clarify: the lemon oil isn't actually lemon oil. It's a wood "conditioner" with lemon scent.

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.

This showed up in my recommended immediately after just changing strings

That looked incredible when you were finished! Removing the tape was oddly satisfying haha

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.

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. 👍

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. 😌

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.

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 !

great help in 35 years i never cleaned a guitar except polish the body. learn something every day thanks.

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.

that bad horsie remix as ur backing track is amazing btw

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

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.

That shinning fret looks satisfying

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.

This is a great video, but I use a Dremel to clean my fretboards. Dremel tools have various attachments that are great for deep cleaning without causing any damage, and polishing afterwards. Still, what's really great about this video is the detail and how you highlight what needs to be cleaned, and how to clean it, so I would always recommend watching this video before starting any fretboard cleaning job. I cleaned a fretboard earlier today and I was done, in and out, in about 15-minutes, that includes removing the neck, removing fret gunk, polishing each individual fret and then wood polishing the neck in the end - and I didn't have to using fret protectors. The fretboard looked brand, spankin' new! If you're not opposed to trying new things, and you own a Dremel with various attachments, then I would highly, giving this method a try, my friend. I started with a spinning attachment that is like a Brillo/steel wool pad, but softer, and it ate up all that nasty gunk in micro-seconds! I ended with a polishing attachments that left the fretboard looking brand new! I'm telling you, man, I mowed through this fretboard with extreme prejudice!

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!

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.

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.

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 :)

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.

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 :-)

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.

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!

I found that some 98% Isopropyl Alcohol and a Wettex cleaning cloth works the best for me for cleaning dirty fretboards, and then I rub some guitar polish on the fretboard after it is clean.

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.

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.

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!! 👍👍

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.

Glad to see you cutting the masking tape at a 45 degree angle with the point under the fret. Great job! 👍

For years I use those products to clean house, floor... Just in the scale. Perfect and pratical.

Okayyyy but those instrumentals are vibeyyyy my guyyyy

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.

I like how you use a hard drive magnet to clean up the steel wool. Very cool!

I love seeing perfectly wound strings like at the end

I cannot believe someone let their guitar get that gnarly. I realize it was just an Ibanez GIO but that was disgusting. The magnet trick for the steel wool remnants was the bomb. I use Simichrome metal polish for my frets at each string change. Makes them shine like a mirror. The difference in feel between polished and unpolished frets will surprise you. It's not just for looks.

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.

Best vid I’ve seen on this so far, thank you!

I learnt a lot from this video and also from a small number of constructive comments. But it's a sad reflection on many other commenters who ignored the expertise, the work and the effort put into making the video and who thought that it was more important to comment on a typo in the title page. And even more sadly they clearly hadn't read the other comments otherwise they would have realised how silly they look given that it had been mentioned dozens of time already.

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!

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.

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

That guitar was pretty clean. You should see my bass lol

Gonna do this to my guitars next weekend

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

Love a good instrument cleaning season. It surely relaxes me.

First track has a bad horsie vibe

You can use a hard tooth-brush instead of the pick...and it is quicker

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.

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.

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

OK. So this video, I trust. Thanks for sharing in such detail.

Awesome job. Definitely makes me want to clean all of mine! Thanks for the tips IT!

This is awesome! I have a couple guitars I have never treated the neck. Been years.

AWSOME WORK!YOU ROCK! Thanks for your tips!

love a good 'freatboard'

The only knob I've seen Grandma polish is Grandpa's... 😜 May god rest their freaky souls...lol 🙏

My Grandma uses that stuff to polish her frets too.

My guitar neck looked similar. The color was actually a moldy green that came off the rag.

For conditioning the wood, could you use mineral oil and beeswax? I know this is how butcher blocks are conditioned, and it works very well, and brings out the amazing grain structure of any wood, and keeps it nice and protected, bit would this be viable on a guitar neck?

Nice snare drum sound in the funk song. Great video and I like the polishing part and the magnet works well . ThanK YOU

I found this clip very useful. Keep it up!

Good job, man! Great video!

Simple Green cleaner and a strong plastic bristle scrub brush with get, that fret board clean 👌, then use linseed oil and bingo 👍

Excellent using plectrum I use Stanley knife blade

some say a white scotch brite pad (WHITE) has the same course as a 0000 steel wool, with less mess. I worry about steel wool flakes getting in my pick ups. And I sure the hell wont use steel wool on my Gibson.

5:46 this is a bit irrelevant but the change in songs was really funny for some reason

I use 0000 steel wool, polishes the frets as well as no dirt remains on the board

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

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

Great video man. So incredible the end result

exactly the video I was looking for! thanks man

Instead of a pick I use an old toothbrush.

Awesome toturial! Everything is well explained and filmed and the final result is amazing. Thanks a lot for this!

So satisfying 😁 definitely trying on my PRS

Nice work doctor... Looks great

I like murphys wood soap that stuff does wonders on maple necks

Cool, thanks for the vid. I actually used a 0000 steel wool to clear the fretboard of about 50y old bass. Nothing else worked. :)

Now THIS IS A USEFUL VIDEO! thanks

One more thing, you should clean and treat the wood every string change.

Great tutorial!!!

What type of magnet you have here ? Any type of magnet would work to clean up the mess the steel wool makes, right ?

Nice Job Dude!! bravo

My guitar's got a wenge fretboard, I read somewhere in a thread in the internet that lemon oil should not be used for it.

Superb video, thanks alot and well done! 👍🏻

Excellent video! But I hope you change those tuners eventually...just looking at them is giving me a headache.

This was my first guitar

I use 100% lemon juice and got the same effect. The lemon oil might be better.

is there any alternatives for lemon oil coz I don't have any?

your string posts are very neat! hope you can show us how to do it hehe

I love this! Thanks again!

Why would you initially push the gunk TOWARDS and INTO the frets? So you can pack it in there with the pick, huh?

Very nice job I like the way you did the fritz the fruits of a shiny the word came out really nice good job

Great video however never, never use lemon oil to condition the neck. Lemon oil will attract more dirt. Use linseed oil and make sure you wipe all of it off the wood.

nice video and good little tracks to go with it...cheers....and yes...the former owner/player of that guitar might want to wash his hands sometimes....just a thought...

Great Video! Thank you for spending the time and effort!

Have you ever tried micro mesh? You can polish your frets much nicer with it

This is so satisfying