Fretboard finish

[Scott J.]

Hi Novice ... "Fretboard finishes" - a good topic to start a riot (sorry, "serious debate" ) ... and I just cant help myself! bwahaha

WARNING! THE FOLLOWING OPINIONS MAY CAUSE DISAGREEMENT

Traditionally (i.e. in the 65 years of electric guitar construction), the choice of finishes was usually based on the type of timber ... maple fretboards got varnished (nitrocellulose) and rosewood/ebony fretboards were oiled ... which explains why all the old maple neck tele's and strats that you see often have grungy, grey-ed staining of the fretboard where the varnish has worn through to the bare timber and been stained by sweaty fingers, spilt beer, and screaming groupies, etc.

There's very few groups of people that are weirder than musicians (and guitarists and basses are some of the weirdest! ) especially when it comes to the "little things" that are believed to make the "big differences" ... and fretboard finishes (and especially oils) are one of the favourite topics ... I've heard mention of folks using everything from ear-wax to the oil of Siberian mink's liver and swearing by the benefits of it ("but man, it gives sooo much better tone!").

Any non-varnish fretboard finish (i.e. oils, waxes, etc) can be basically spilt into two groups - mineral and vegetable (I'm not much up on waxes but I believe the principles for it are the same as for oils)

There's been a lot of research conducted on the properties and effects that each has on timber as a tonewood component and it would appear that setting the benefits of each aside (and their fairly balanced in that regard), mineral oils have a distinct drawback to them that vegetable oils don't have ... many timbers (more precisely the grain and pores of the timber) don't react well over the long term with the build up of minerals from the oil ... but we are talking long term here (as in decades, not years).

... and even vegetable-sounding oils (such as lemon oil) might not be true vegetable oils (only part vegetable) if the manufacturer has used a mineral oil base in their production.

There's also some mighty fancy oils (and mighty expensive too!) available through the Interweb, but they seem to want to put themselves into the "snake oil" category (superbly capable of relieving the gullible from the pain of their excess dollars)

True Tung Oil is a good standard and perhaps the most widely used (alongside Lemon Oil) - it's vegetable-based from the Tung Nut (Vernicia fordii). Tung hardens when exposed to air into an almost plastic-like finish - so it does have a slight affect on the "feel" of the fingerboard but only as far as personal preference goes and it does provide a longer lasting finish than most other comparable oils.
NB Not all Tung Oils are actually Tung Oil, some are marketed as Tung Oil because they behave similarly to the real stuff and can be used for the same purpose (check the individual manufacturer's product spec - Tung Oil seems to have become a generic term like "Coke" has for any cola drink).

Personally I've become a fan of vegetable-based Bore Oil ... the same oil that woodwind players have been using for centuries in their clarinets, oboes, etc. and generally available wherever they sell those instruments (and usually only in tiny 10ml bottles). It doesn't harden to the same type of finish as Tung Oil does and it doesn't stay greasy, so there's almost no preceptable change in the feel of the fretboard, however it does need more regular application than Tung Oil (I bore oil my fretboards at least once a year even if they haven't been played ... more often if they've been played heavily)