Adventures in Scraping my fret board - LOTS of pictures

[aaronl]

OK I decided to just go for it.
I got a 10 pack of razor blades, a roll of paper towels, a bottle of murphys soap stuff and some quiet time.

I am posting some pictures of the process from start to finish.















I don't know if it helped playability a lot or what but its a ton and it looks really nice now!

[guitarsmark]

looks smokin!

[aaronl]

Originally Posted by guitarsmark

looks smokin!

Thanks I was somewhat nervous because I have never done this before but now I feel much better about it and I think it looks great.

Its always cool to me at least to do little things like this, even though I should have been practicing

[rudarb]

What exactly did you do? I will be changing my strings soon and I may be doing this as well, a walk throught would be appreciated, ive never done it either

[aaronl]

OK.
I took a fresh new razor blade.
I then held it at a 90* angle perpendicular to the fret board.
I tried to "drag" it lightly from like say fret 1 to fret 2.
I did it slowly and cleaned the razor every 2 or 3 swipes.
I got some light brown that came off that you can probably see in the pictures don't know if that was dirt or wood or both but its way smoother now.
I used 3 blades total, that was probably overkill but it was like $1.57 for 10 of them.
When I got finished I used Murphy Oil Soap, I put it on with a q-tip and then swirled it around and such and then fairly quickly wiped it off with a paper towel.
You can see the q-tips are kinda nasty above.
Then I made sure it was good and dry and put on some lemon oil. I may have used to much I don't know but it sat for about 30 mins then I wiped it up really good, let it sit for about 10 more and did it again.

I just played it some and it may be the old placebo effect but it sure feels a lot smoother to play now and no matter what I think it looks a ton better.

I hope that helps, I am a rookie man I have done some woodworking but not on guitars so much.

Hopefully some of the pros will see this and tell me if what I did was right, sort of right or way out in left field

[dcooper830]

Originally Posted by aaronl

O
I just played it some and it may be the old placebo effect but it sure feels a lot smoother to play now and no matter what I think it looks a ton better.

I notice the same thing and I'm not sure if it's placebo.... but my guitars always feel a smoother and more playable after a good fretboard oiling.

[rudarb]

Thanks aaronl ill try that