oil for geetar neck

For the fingerboard, I use fretboard oil. A small bottle runs around US $4.00 and lasts for eternity plus a week. Your local guitar shop should carry an appropriate polish for the rest of the instrument.

I would stick with th a made for guitar product.
I have read some people use lemon oil.

There really aren't any "made for guitar" products, but there are plenty of "marketed for guitar" ones. "Lemon oil" is lemon scented light medicinal white mineral oil. Baby oil's the same, with a different fragrance. Real citrus oils are powerful solvents, not lubes. Like rubbing turpentine on your guitar, you don't want to go there.

I've been using olive oil for years as a fretboard and string lube, and it works fine.

So do all the dozens of marketed-for-guitar fretboard and string lubes. I've got Fender's and Gibson's on hand. Haven't ever bothered to try them, because the olive oil works just fine.

With any of these products, rub 'em on, then rub 'em off. Don't leave an oil slick.

thanks! i have some extra virgin olive oil i cook w/ im gonna dab on and give it a try. maybe some basil and vinegarette nexttime;)

Can't Olive Oil go rancid on you though? I'd be worried that it would start getting sticky.

I use the Gibson stuff for my fretboard and their polish for my guitars.

Jason

It doesn't, though. I've been using it on all my guitars for 5 years, and I believe it would've done so by now. If you leave a big slick of it, it will get sticky. I've got a leather strap I saturated with it years ago, didn't wipe off and put away, and it's a bit sticky. Doesn't smell bad, though. I use it a good bit as a leather treatment and waterproofer, and have for 15 years or so. I wear belts every day that I made and treated with olive oil, and the same with my leather coats. Been using it (on the maker's recommendation) to lubricate the key on my plastic Aulos tenor recorder for about 15 years, as they say mineral oils might attack the plastic. Never had any problems there.

Like I said, don't leave a big oil slick. Wipe it off when you're done. A microscopically thin film is all you need on the surface.

The way I use it on my guitars is to dip my finger in the oil and pull each string between my oily finger and thumb before putting it on the guitar. The rest of the oil on my fingers gets rubbed on the fretboard (of unfinished rosewood ones, I don't do this with finished fretboards.) Then I wipe it all off when done.

Okay, I'll further complicate this. I use mineral oil -- doesn't smell, spoil (neither does olive oil), harden or insidiously dry out wood. Also, it's recommended by Dan Erlewine (guitar tech guru.)

I have lots of mineral oil since i do some woodworking.

It's easy to use, cheaper than things like olive oil, and readily available in small or large quantities.

Can't argue with any of that.

I got my olive oil free, though. Fished it out of the trash. My wife figured it'd been around long enough that it just had to be rancid. (Wasn't, though.) When I finished one bottle, I found another my wife had similarly pitched, so I'm supplied for at least another 10 years or so. (I use more of it on leather than I do on guitars.)

The only reason I'm not a mineral oil booster is that I've taken apart lots of old guns whose stocks have become saturated around the actions with mineral oil. The wood gets soft and punky, as the oil slowly dissolves the lignin binding the wood fibers. I've also read that it will eventually deteriorate leather. I doubt a guitar will last long enough for this to happen before it gets accidentally scrunched, or becomes uneconomical to repair because of needing neck resets and such. (Guitars aren't long-term durable instruments like violins, for which one made in the mid-1800s is considered "new" in some circles.) Hopefully nobody's going to be completely saturating their guitar with oil, either!

Ricochet,

Don't be too sure of that notion that guitars aren't long term instruments.

I know more than a few jazz guys who are very serious when they say that a guitar less than 50 years old hasn't had enough time to develop it's full sound potential.

50 years old isn't very old. Heck, I'm 50 years old!

50 years old isn't very old. Heck, I'm 50 years old!

proof that olive oil works. :D

Guitars will last as long as violins. In fact, the earliest guitar (or at least guitar-like instrument) still around is older than the earliest violin. There aren't a lot of 400 year old guitars, because the instrument was not as popular as chamber string instruments.

The modern guitar design is only about 150 years old. However, lots of pre-modern guitars are still around... including a couple made by Stradivari. Stradiveri made 540 violins (some websites say about 1100, but I believe that's an estimate of his total instrument ouput - violins, cellos, harps, guitars, mandolins, etc.).

About 650 of his instruments are still with us today. Since he was most noted for his violins, they've fared the best: 512 exist. But there are also more than a hundred other playable Stradiveri instruments, including two guitars.

At any rate, age improves things... but it sure helps if the instrument was really good to start with. Stradiveri violins go for $2,000,000 and up if they were made after 1700 (during the second half of his career); the bargains are in the earlier, older instruments - they're about half price :)

At any rate, age improves things... but it sure helps if the instrument was really good to start with. Stradiveri violins go for $2,000,000 and up if they were made after 1700 (during the second half of his career); the bargains are in the earlier, older instruments - they're about half price :)

great, so i can get a guitar for 1,000,000....sounds awsome...im gonna have to look that guy up tho, never heard of him before.