Breathing New Life In My Acoustic Guitar

Hey guys! Today I'm going to share a few tips with you on how to bring your old 6 string back to life!

These are very simple and basic tasks that most guitarists will already know to do, but there are several people out there that are uncertain about things like cleaning the fretboard.

The guitar that I am performing these tasks on is an Ibanez acoustic that I bought second hand. Everything that I do to this 300 dollar guitar, I have already done to my 4,000 dollar guitar so I'm confident in the products and techniques used.

Here you can see how dry the fretboard is. There's tons of different opinions on whether or not you should even clean and/or oil your fretboard. And there's the same amount of opinions on what you should use if you do decide to clean it.

I've read countless articles and watched several videos on cleaning up a fretboard and I decided for myself that it should be cleaned and conditioned periodically.

I know respected musicians that say they use plain water and a cotton cloth to clean their fretboards and even one guitarist stated that he uses his own spit to clean his. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with using said materials but for me, I will just buy a commercial product that is intended for the job.

Here is a picture of everything that I will be using for this task.

Some people will say cleaning the fretboard should be cleaned once a year or every time the strings are changed or they might even say it should never have to be cleaned and conditioned. Me personally, I will detail the entire instrument whenever I change the strings which is equivalent to about once or twice a year.

Basically everything in the picture above are cleaners to remove built up dirt and grime, an oil specifically made for rosewood fretboards, wax for the body, string winder, new strings and a fret polishing kit.

Pictured below are the different types of polishing cloths for the frets. You basically think of it as sandpaper and each color is a different grit. The piece of metal that you see is a piece made to go over the fret wire to protect the wood while polishing. It doesn't take much pressure to do this so be careful not to remove too much metal.

After cleaning the fretboard and polishing the frets, I apply a product called Hydrate by D'Addario. This product works very well at restoring the oils in the wood that have been dried out over time.

Not much is needed and per the instructions, you buff the wood as soon as the oil is applied NOT letting the product dry on the wood.

Here is what the fretboard looks like after all the cleaning and polishing.

Cleaning the body is pretty straightforward and some people actually use car wax which is fine also. I just used a wax that's made for it specifically. To be honest, there's probably not any or not much difference between car wax and guitar wax.

After installing the new strings and finishing the detailing, it felt and sounded like a brand new guitar.

If you're like me, you like to take care of your toys. And if you're not really familiar with how to care for them, you research it until you're competent in performing these tasks. I was actually nervous about cleaning and oiling my fretboard the first time until I researched it and finally done it on my own. Just follow the directions on the specific product and you should be fine.

Pro Tip! If you decide to clean and oil your fretboard or any other part of an instrument, be sure that the product is safe for the type of wood you have. For example, the products that I used here are for rosewood and mahogany woods and NOT for maple. So if I attempted to use these cleaners on a maple fretboard, I stand a chance on damaging the wood or finish.

Have a great day, guys!

@bluelightbandit
Non Ducor, Duco