Rough fretboard.

chillidoggy

Not the forum, my SG. It's a rosewood board, well it looks like rosewood, but  it's quite rough to the touch. I wonder if the quality of the woods at that time might have been a bit iffy, but it seems to have larger, more open grain than my Flying V, and is not that pleasant to the touch.

Is it feasible to smooth it down with some very fine wet and dry, or am I pissing into the wind?

sweepy

You can scrape it along the grain with a sharp flat edge, tends to smooth out raised grain that wasn't filled/worked correctly, lube with lemon oil first, then you get a feel for what's happening

TTony

Stick up a pic Mr Chilli, and someone'll identify whether its rosewood or not.  That's probably step 1.  

chillidoggy

Bear in mind I bought this guitar brand new, and it's hardly been used, and the wood is quite a light colour in contrast to others I have seen.

 

Try these, chaps -

 

http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee189/chillidoggy/Guitars/DSCN1526_zps50805da6.jpg

http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee189/chillidoggy/Guitars/DSCN1527_zpsa2f79a0f.jpg

 

 

 

octatonic

Your mum has a rough fretboard.

ICBM

That's typical of the rather dry, rough rosewood Gibson use now.

Personally I would polish it with wire wool *across* the neck - I know that's wrong from a woodwork point of view, but it will feel much nicer that way. If you use a couple of grades of wire wool, finishing off with very fine, and then re-oil, you'll barely see the scratches.

Make sure you put masking take over the pickup polepieces before you start with the wire wool, and hoover the whole thing thoroughly before you take it off again.

octatonic

I'd micro mesh that fingerboard and give it a good drink of lemon oil.

WezV

0000 liberon wire wool, lots of elbow grease and a bit of oil.  i also go across the fretboard like ICBM says

chillidoggy

Actually 'dry' is precisely the word I'd use to describe it, as well as 'rough'.

I've given it probably 6-7 doses of Fret Doctor since I bought it, but it's not really done a lot. What's micro mesh, Oct? sounds like a Thanet bird's undies.

sweepy

Hate to disagree with ICBM and octatonic on this one, get an old school craft razor blade from the hobby store and carefully go with the grain dragging the sharp edge away from you, whilst the board is lubricated with lemon oil, salvaged many a rough board in this fashion inc Zenephyr's rather  lovely Firebird

chillidoggy

Thanks for the info guys, but there's seems to be some conflicting (in the nicest possible way) views here. I'm wondering if there's more than one way of skinning the cat?

 

As I agree that the quality of the wood is not great, if that is a given, am I likely to scrape, or buff it, only to find more of the same as I get further down, if you see what I mean? Or are any of the aforementioned remedies only likely to improve matters?

impmann

I'd agree with ICBM that the rosewood isn't the greatest quality (thanks Gibson) - I've had to wrestle with a couple of similar boards/frets recently myself.
In my experience the grain is quite open on these and therefore sweat etc lifts the grain up giving a rough feel. On both the guitars I did (both LP Studios actually) I scraped the grain down as described by Sweepy as a 'rough cut' and then used micro mesh to finish. Followed that with a liberal dose of Lemon Oil or three. I didn't go across the grain but I can see why ICBM suggests that.
I'd also keep feeding the board for a few weeks afterwards to try to seal that board. It will be worth it in the long term - but may take a lot of oil to stop that grain from swelling some more.
Good luck

WezV

That's the funny thing about forums, you think you are disagreeing but really you are just suggesting an alternative method. Alternative methods are good, they will let the OP choose the one that suits their available tools and experience.

You would be disagreeing if you said their methods don't work, which I am sure you are not

....

wire wool is good because it lets you get right up to the frets, it doesn't remove much wood so you have a lot of control, but its very messy.  the final finish feels very smooth, but not as smooth as micromeshed to 12000grit.   although i stipulate liberon brand because its noticeably higher quality than any others out there, it will leave your board scratch free wheres others won't

micromesh is less messy (at least the metallic mess) but you have issues getting right up to the frets.  Of course you can polish the frets with it too   but this will leave the wood rather grey so it would need cleaning up with wire wool.  so carefully between the frets is best and that makes it a bit fiddly for me.   Although all my boards do get micromeshed  before fretting because it does feel great, and its easier to do with no frets in the way

Razor scraping will give you a lot of control and let you get right up to each fret, the only mess is wood .  but if that blade isn't totally sharp or the grain is particularly stubborn than skipping can occur and it would need finishing off with wire wool... it takes a bit more skill than wire wool alone and it is easy to remove too much wood, but that's what makes it a good technique for particularly rough boards

.....

once you accept a multiple perspective approach its easy to see how they can be combined for best results, or chosen according to the particular needs of a particular guitars.  

impmann

Spot on, that, Wez. I'm Certainly not disagreeing with any advice given at all.

My only reasons for not using wire wool last time I did this was 1) clearing up afterwards and 2) I didn't have any good quality stuff here!

GuitarMonkey

I'd do both - Stanley knife blade with the grain, then "lemon" oil and 0000 wire wool across the frets.

chillidoggy

I guess I'll have to make a decision at some point, but in the meantime I might just order up some wire wool and micro mesh, what ever that is. Any suppliers recommended for that, guys?

imalone

Rothko and Frost do it http://shop.rothkoandfrost.co.uk but don't do the liberon wire wool that WezV suggests. http://www.axminster.co.uk do both, but only sell micro-mesh in packs and haven't bought anything from them before, but they should be reliable.

ThePrettyDamned

I used Amazon for wire wool, nice and cheap for liberon when I got it.

WezV

its not that I am sponsored by liberon or anything like that, but i have made the mistake of buying colron stuff from B&Q before... took this pic

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/new/wirewool.jpg

that is colron 0000, colron 00000 and liberon 0000.

thermionic

One of the reasons I've heard that you shouldn't use linseed oil on fretboards is that it forms a hard outer layer and "seals" the wood almost like a varnish. Maybe in this case it sounds like it could help?

chillidoggy

/\ You mean after rubbing the rosewood down?