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How to Degrease a Guitar Fretboard

Guitars, like any instrument, need regular cleaning. When you play your guitar as often as you should, your fingers will leave oil, dirt and salt deposits behind. To clean and degrease your guitar's fretboard properly, you will have to remove the strings. The best time to clean your fretboard is when you change the guitar's strings. If you are not comfortable removing, replacing and tuning the strings, take the guitar into a repair shop. They'll change the strings and deep-clean the entire guitar for a minimal fee.

Things You'll Need

Chamois
0000 steel wool
Guitar polish
Lemon oil

Instructions

- 1
  Turn the tuning peg to loosen the top string until it is slack. Uncoil and remove the guitar string from the tuning peg with your fingers.
- 2
  Free the end of the string on an acoustic guitar by pull the sting's bridge pin up with your fingers. Replace the bridge pin temporarily so you don't lose it. Free the end of an electric guitar string by simply pulling the end of the guitar string through the hole in the back of the bridge.
- 3
  Scrape off any gunk around the fretboard with a fingernail or toothpick.
- 4
  Moisten a chamois or piece of grade-0000 steel wool with guitar polish. Chamois are best for most fretboards. Steel wool is designed to clean and polish heavily soiled or scratched, unfinished ebony or rosewood fretboards.
- 5
  Rub the fretboard up and down along the length of the fretboard in the direction of the grain of the wood. Use your fingernail to press the chamois or steel wool up against the top and bottom of the frets to make sure that they are thoroughly cleaned. As you visibly dirty one section of the chamois or steel wool, move on to the next.
- 6
  Rub the steel wool lightly across the grain to remove horizontal scratches in the fretboard made by your fingernails or strings. If only cleaning with a chamois, skip this step.
- 7
  Moisten a clean section of the chamois with lemon or linseed oil.
- 8
  Rub the cleaned section of the fretboard up and down along the length of the fretboard in the direction of the grain of the wood. Use your fingernail to press the chamois or steel wool up against the top and bottom of the frets to make sure that the areas right next to the frets are oiled as well.
- 9
  String a new guitar string, bottom first. Thread the top end of the guitar string through the tuning peg. Wait to tune the strings until the fretboard is clean and all of the strings are replaced.
- 10
  Repeat Steps 1 through 9 with the rest of the strings on the guitar.

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