How do you clean a guitar fretboard with items in the house? Everyone has experienced this. Your guitar is peeking messy as it can be and you have none of those superficial products. What now? There are some effortless ways to clean the fretboard of your amazing electric guitar. And you don’t need those expensive parts, per se. How to clean a fretboard on an electric guitar? Read on to find out more significant details!
Do you just clean it with water? Perfume? How can you do so without damaging your instrument? That is exactly what we will be speaking about in this article. So, without further ado, let’s dive into more below!
You can clean a fretboard on an electric guitar with plain water, vegetable oil soap, or mineral spirits.
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How to clean a fretboard on an electric guitar?
Let’s focus on cleaning a guitar fretboard with household items for now. You can just utilize things such as Q-tips or cotton swabs to vacate the ground that is precisely located to the side of the racket. And also employ cotton orbs (or even face-cleansing pads) for the middle part in between frets. You should do this patiently with each fret and accessibly without any strings on your guitar. Utilizing a tiny bit of water is oftentimes favored before spraying some potent fragrances or any other liquid with chemicals that could conceivably harm your guitar.
Many who have been playing guitar for years can confirm one thing. A neat guitar truly senses slightly unique. What’s more, it will even allow your instrument to last longer. There are many forms in which you can cleanse your guitar without having to purchase any product. This truly goes without saying!
The next items that we are about to list are some of those that won’t substitute real guitar cleaning outcomes. Yet, it will keep your instrument in splendid shape. Later on below, we will reveal to you a step-by-step of how to utilize them to clean your fretboard. So, make sure to check it all out! Let’s op into more details!
#1 Plain water is key
No, you didn’t read that wrong! That same water that we drink each day and use to shower with. You can use it to clean this significant part of your guitar. This absolutely goes without saying!
Water could be a significant alternative to most effects that you may try to clean your guitar with. Be aware that could potentially harm it. If you are having a second thought, just utilize water! Plain water is truly free, readily open, with no severe chemicals, no fire risks, no health risks, and you won’t be needing any safety gear. Yet, we are not talking about spraying your whole guitar wet, or anything extreme. Just clasp a cotton ball or even a microfiber textile, and with a bit of water, gradually and patiently clean each fret in your guitar. That is a fact!
Many individuals will dispute that operating water will give you problems when drawing heavy ground that may potentially be on your guitar if you haven’t scrubbed it in a long time. This is quite true!
And if that’s the matter and your guitar is in quite a poor shape, then you should use something else. Yet, if your fretboard is not that messy and just needs a snappy clean-up, then you can never go wrong this way.
#2 Guitar picks, or plastic cards
This relies on how wrong your fretboard is looking, if the ground is so evident that you can see it, then it might be a suitable concept to grind it a tiny bit before you apply any products. This is the unwritten rule!
Things like old plastic lines (old credit cards) or your guitar picks (if they haven’t vanished yet) could be extremely helpful when doing this. In my case, I will use a small piece of cardboard from a Listerine Pocketpaks package. This one even comes with the corners cut, which turned out to be a very promising technique.
You will want to horizontally push the ground away, and if it is too close to the actual fret then just use one of the corners of the card or the top of your guitar picks to remove those. This might sound a bit obvious but make sure that you don’t employ a knife or anything that can scratch and leave marks on your fretboard. You might be amazed at how many individuals have had this issue. This goes without saying, by all means!
#3 Utilizing vegetable oil soap
Another thing that you can do is to catch it whether you keep vegetable oil soap around your house. Note I’m not talking about the vegetable oil that you utilize for cooking meals in your house. This is a wonderful oil soap that is fabricated with water, coconut, plant-derived cleaning components, natural fragrance, and 2% synthetic ingredients. It contains 98% naturally derived ingredients, and pure vegetable oil and it’s very safe to use on generally any wood type. This is the unwritten rule, per se!
Individuals usually own these around the home, so it makes them a flawless option for experienced guitar cleaning products. This particular outcome scrubs to a genuine glow and does not include any excessive chemicals. Use a tiny bit of this oil soap with any cotton ball or microfiber cloth, and after cleaning all the hard dirt on your fretboard, this will give it a great shine and feel. This is important!
If there is a lot of filth, release it beforehand, and then easily apply it until you are satisfied with the results. The good thing about these types of wood cleaning products is that not only can you use them on your fretboard, but also on your guitar body and neck.
There is more to this
however, among many mind-blowing comments, one individual said that your guitar might get sticky. Yet, for many, that is not the case.
For most individuals, that hasn’t been the issue. Yet, if you want to be sure this doesn’t occur to you, then you can either mix the oil soap with a bit of water, utilize truthfully little amounts at a time, or slightly remove it with a dry microfiber cloth after you’re done. Either way, most of the time, your guitar shouldn’t need a disproportionate amount of any product if you clean it regularly. We have to consider all these tins!
#4 Mineral spirits
Mineral spirits are quite mild and won’t destroy the endings harshly. It’s worth an attempt as it’s awesome for getting sticky things off your fretboard. You might be able to find it around your house! This goes without saying!
There is one tricky catch though. If you do a quick search online, you will find, just like with any other product, a lot of uncertainty among guitar players on platforms such as Reddit. Cleansing your fretboard periodically with mineral spirits is secure. Yet, long openness or even aggressive rubbing with the incorrect kind of mineral spirits can have undesirable results on your fretboard. That is a fact.
So make sure to employ these products as a quick alternative and not a lifetime solution until you find the right one made exactly for guitar fretboards. That is the most important factor to take into consideration.
#5 Naphtha is next
This outcome will be a bit tough to use in tiny amounts. Why? Well, because it will fast vaporize, yet, that’s the way you want it to be. This is the unwritten rule, by all means!
Only use a tiny bit gradually as it will act as a way to pull the oils from your fretboard. This will be extremely helpful to clean up all the soil that you exit manually when playing. Yet, recall one thing for sure! Merely employ this outcome if you already have the proper oil to utilize immediately after that. Why? Well, because if you don’t, then you will end up drying out your entire fretboard, and we do not want t That is the unwritten rule.
How to clean your guitar fretboard?
Now that you know about some of the outcomes or things that you can and can’t utilize, let’s put it all jointly.
#1 Place your guitar in a safe place
Now, before starting to cleanse your guitar is very vital that you put it in a way that you won’t hurt it.
For instance, do not try to cleanse your guitar on the bottom. This will, most of the time, scrape your guitar’s essence, and it will be quite irritating for you to even cleanse it adequately.
What you can do, though, is to use a table and try to set your instrument over specific bedsheets or something with a matching texture. As you can visualize, the guitar won’t be harmed or scratched in any way by the table’s texture and it’s just more suitable for you to nicely work on it.
Interesting fact: Did you know there is a belief that some guitarists are arrogant? Is it the truth or not?
#2 Releasing all the strings
If you’re intending on doing a profound cleaning to your fretboard, then try to extract all the strings at once. Even if you’re not intending on getting rid of them, it will be much better for you to have them all cleared, sooner than working your way up, one by one.
If you have never done this back, then the first thing you would need to do is ease up each string as much as you can. Then relying on whether you want to use them again or not, you would just cut them, or pull them carefully. Be mindful of its step.
Note: Can playing the guitar makes you sleepy? This is a strange truth for some individuals. It goes without saying!
#3 Washing your fretboard
The foremost thing that we will do is cleanse the frets. Yet, before doing so, we need to shield the wood. Some individuals like to employ tape or a fret guard. Now, let’s go into the details.
If you are curious about doing it as well, then the only thing you require is some kind of powerful cardboard that bends, some scissors, and one pen. These are the essentials. Simply go to the last fret of your guitar, and draw some dimensions, just like in the picture above. After that, cut a hole in the middle, wide enough that it could entirely fit a fret. Sometimes, even after cleaning the entire fretboard, you will find out that the frets are still dirty.
These paints are not quite apparent from a distance (and most of the time you are not going to be doing all this work), but they are certainly there. In this circumstance, you may employ a nail file together with a tiny amount of toothpaste (individually, and in this identical order) to cleanse the fusses.
How to clean a maple fretboard on an electric guitar?
You can clean an unfinished Maple fretboard by using ultra-fine 0000 steel wool. This extracts ground without provoking deterioration of the frets. A negligibly damp material can also be employed, particularly on satin-finished maple, but generally, evade utilizing anything other than this.