when i started playing a couple years ago i yanked out an old guitar i'd had since i was a kid... it had spent the past 40 years gathering dust and exposed to extreme heat, cold, and both humid and arid conditions. it was in pretty rough shape for a guitar barely used. the fretboard was really dry.

for more than a year i've conditioned it with oil, but i've not been happy with the results... the wood seems dry again a few days after oiling, and the oil makes for slippery fingers for a day or so. i'd always been told that oil was best, and to avoid lemon oil, but even special purpose oil left the wood wanting.

i recently stumbled on a few reddit threads on the topic, but from the perspective of fretless bass players, violin, etc. the majority of them seem to prefer wax, so i thought i'd give it a try.

i'm three string changes in, and the wax is doing a great job. not only is the wood better conditioned, it remains conditioned the entire way thru a set of strings. the fretboard feels like silk with no oily residue and the wood looks much better. i'm sold... from now on it's wax.

i've also stopped using fret polish in favor of #0000 steel wool. note if you are working on an electric guitar make sure you cover your pickups very well to make sure the steel dust doesn't get into your pickup magnets. or better yet, use an equivalent polishing scotch brite. don;t use anything coarser than four-zeros.

my new routine is quite simple, fast, and does a far better job...

1. lightly rub steel wool with the wood grain to remove build up gunk and wax and polish the frets.

2. wipe down with naphtha (lighter fluid, i use some hexane i had lying around). this removes any dust, dissolves any oils, and and allows a thin layer of wax to dissolve and soak into the wood.

3. once dry, apply a light coat of wax. i gave danchet instrument wax a try, as it is fairly cheap. it's just beeswax. you can get other brands of wax that include carnauba wax. some include additives, usually a solvent. some contain stain if you want an antique look (would probably fix the discoloration you see below).

4. let the wax dry for 20 minutes, then buff off.

here is what my fretboard looked like two weeks after oil...

after a light cleaning you can see the wear and tear... i've got about 1500 hours of playtime on this guitar. the damage is from my fingers rubbing the wood, not from the strings digging in... the strings sit over the dark regions that have very little wear.

after waxing...

even after 6 weeks of use it still looks decent...

best of all is the silky feel of the wood.

guess i'll be pouring the rest of the f-one oil into a tiki torch 🤣