Ebonite F'board Care?

I have ebonite on my newest Switch guitar that is all synthetic. I am under the impression that ebonite is a synthetic and not wood, so I don't believe it needs conditioning but cleaning it once in a while would be a good thing. I'm gonna try a search on the stuff and see what I find. Now ebony, which I have on my Les Paul is wood. The only reason you don't treat a maple board is because they usually finish them and the rosewood and ebony boards are are not finished.

OK, here is what I found:

Ebonite is one of the earliest forms of plastic. A hard, rigid and shiny resin, it was intended as an artificial substitute for ebony wood. It is actually a very hard rubber first obtained by Charles Goodyear by vulcanizing rubber for prolonged periods. As a result, it is about 30% to 40% sulfur. It is often used in bowling balls, smoking pipe mouthpieces, fountain pen nib feeds, and high-quality saxophone and clarinet mouthpieces. It is also commonly used in physics classrooms to demonstrate static electricity.

Hard rubber ('Ebonite' is a brand name that's not universally used) was used in the cases of automobile batteries for years, thus establishing black as their traditional color even long after stronger modern plastics were substituted. It is used in hair combs made by Ace, which survive, essentially unchanged, from the days of the US Civil War.

If Ebonite is burned, it produces large amounts of smoke.

Interesting. I believe in a post I had about my switch guitar Ricochet told me my fingerboard was made of bowling ball. :lol:

I did a search on "cleaning an ebonite guitar fingerboard" and this post was at the top of the search. :lol:

Ebonite, one of the largest bowling ball/products companys in America, i use their balls almost exclusively
(my last 300 game was with an Ebonite ball.)
they haven't made balls out of that substance now for decades tho.

i would say that a wet rag with dish soap would do a fine job without risk of any damage.

kewl, thanks guys. when I searched, I was only finding stuff on ebonite generrally, so wasn't sure what'd happen if I e.g. used lemon oil on it. seems I don't need to tho. :D :D

I wouldn't use lemon oil on it. Any kind of mineral oil or organic solvent is likely to attack rubber, quickly or slowly over time.

The company likely published care instructions. If they're not available, I think the cleaning with plain soap and water is good advice. If you must oil it, stick with something like olive oil, cooking spray or perhaps a silicone. I'd be hesitant to recommend a silicone because many of them are blended with mineral oils and solvents, and any contact with silicone on finished wood makes any future refinishing a lot more difficult. That's what several of the commercial string and fretboard lubes sold by guitar companies are, though.

props Ricochet - any ideas as to which commercial guitar cleaners and lubes contain silicone? I use fastfret on most of my guitar, and lemon oil pretty rarely on the rosewood necks only.

I've hunted up MSDS sheets for several in the past to find out what's in them. Can't tell you reliably now what's what. But that's a good way to do it.

I used to use lemon oil on my rosewood boards but after several years of hearing Ricochet rave about olive oil I tried it and you know what? I like it. I taste good .. ummm .. no seriously. It worked well on the board. Oh, and yes, definitely, if "Ebonite" is rubber don't oil it. They don't play nice together. I plan to just clean my ebonite board with a mild soap and a damp cloth when the need arises.