I thought I would start an occasional tips and tricks entry to share some of the things I have learned or developed myself to maintain, repair or get the best out of a guitar.
I recently took in this lovely vintage Japanese Zenta. It's is in very good condition but very dirty. especially the fret board which has a large amount of ingrained grubbiness as can be seen from the first picture here. Must have been a gardeners guitar.
Most would get the wire wool out on this type of dirt but the problem with that I find is you have to go across the grain and this will show scratch marks unless you use very fine wire wool which will take an age to clean this kind of dirt and unless you have very good fret work with no gap between fret and board I find it leaves tiny bits of steel wool fragments catching under the frets.
I use a backed razor blade or a Stanley knife blade and gently scrape the dirt off. Moving between frets along the grain. at pretty much 90 degrees to the board You will find this very quickly and effectively removes the dirt. You will have some dirt compressed into the edges of the frets I use the very corner of the blade to slide right along the fret edge taking care not to dig into the wood.
You shouldn't have to worry about damaging the wood as long as you are firm don't push too hard and be careful not to slip which is quite easy if you go too fast.
If your fret board has wear or if it's shrunk a little and your fret dots are raised you can go a little harder taking the very top surface off the wood or dots off to even it up. Believe it or not all the dust in the picture below is just the dirt and maybe a little of the dots that where ever so slightly proud of the board.
Use a brush to brush off the dust and hey presto one clean fret board.
You can see som lateral scratch marks these are from a previous clean or maybe from the original manufacture.
I also dressed and polished the frets at this stage.
To finish it off I apply two coats of Danish oil thinned 50 - 50 with white spirit. This sinks into the wood brings out the grain very nicely. levels off the surface and dries to a hard durable natural finish which should last for many years.
Of course dirt like this can be avoided by washing your hands before playing and cleaning the fretboard with a rag after playing or at least every time you change strings.
