How often to use Lemon Oil on the Fretboard?

Depends on how often you change the strings. Usually Once a month or every other month has worked for me.

Some guys change strings after every performance, others once a week, whilst others like me, once a month? Then there are those that wait wayyyy too long to change their strings.

Frequency really depends on how often you play and/or when your strings go... well "OUT". If you don't know what that means or sounds like, change your strings, and take note of how NEW strings sound.... then over a few weeks of playing you'll slowly hear them go out. Me I don't like that NEW String sound I like them go set In a little bit.

I use this stuff called "Guitar Honey". Red stuff in a little squirt bottle. It doesn't take much and I start wiping as soon as I start spraying. I use it with every string change with the strings completely off my guitar(s) and I give them a good wipe down/polish. But I only use the Honey/lemon Oil on the fingerboard(s) never on the finish of the guitar.

So the Short Answer....?? (Once a month). But I play a lot, not a ton but a lot.

Hope that helps.

I oil whenever the board looks dry. Incidently I use olive oil so I don't have to worry about it decomposing the fretboard.

i use lemon oil and i do it, at most, twice a year.

Like art&lutherie I use olive oil, whenever it seems to be getting "dry" or when changing strings. Usually that happens too often for the wood to "dry out." I don't ever leave a thick film of the stuff on for long, I wipe it off well a few minutes after applying it.

I oil whenever the board looks dry. Incidently I use olive oil so I don't have to worry about it decomposing the fretboard.i never heard about lemon oil being hard on the fret board,i've been using this gibson fret conditioner which i thought was just lemon oil,good to know 8)

Lemon oil is not hard on the fretboard - the solvent that is used to carry the lemon oil may well be. The cheaper the oil, the more likely it is that cheap carrier fluids were used.

Never.

I have a guitar that is over 20 years old (I bought it from a friend a couple of years ago when I started playing), he owned it for most of it's life and it's never been done nor do I plan on doing it. Looks and feels great to me.

Why do people do this anyway? If it's a case of the wood drying out, why doesn't everybody do the insides of an acoustic?

I'm not being sarcastic in any way. I just don't understand why.

I use 3-in-1 (I dunno if that brand has made it outside the UK, so just for ref it's a light general purpose oil - the kind of thing you'd use on squeaky door hinges). I do it whenever the fretboard gets a little slow, usually once a fortnight or so.

Why? It lubricates the fretboard, making bending smoother. And the wood looks better oiled.

Here's another hypothesis.

Wood is acidic, so is lemon oil. Wood gives off minute amounts of acid (mostly acetic and formic acids) and regular treatment with lemon oil maintains the acidic "status quo" of the wood.

It seems that oak is about the worst wood for levels of acid put into the atmosphere. Put a piece of mild steel (or any substance that rusts/tarnishes/into an enclosed oak chest or display cabinet and it will start to rust - a phenomenon well known to museums

Lemon oil is not hard on the fretboard - the solvent that is used to carry the lemon oil may well be.

That's a good point. I checked the label on the bottle of lemon oil I've been using and it claims to be solvent free, wax free, and a bunch-of-other-stuff-free. Unfortunately the price was not free.

Anyway, a couple times a year is plenty, and you don't need much of it to clean up your fretboard.

eek i've never put oil on my fretboards..they seem fine thoug...

There's confusion about what is "lemon oil." Oil extracted from lemon and other citrus peels is a rather volatile substance composed of terpenes, mainly limonene. It's quite similar chemically to turpentine, and is about equal to it as a solvent. I'd never use it on a guitar. Back when I was cycling I bought a chain cleaning device that came with a bottle of citrus oil. Cleaned that nasty sticky black grease and grit right off that chain. I wouldn't trust it on my guitar's finish. I do like "Fast Orange" hand cleaner, which is based on the same stuff, for cleanup after working on my car.

"Lemon Oil" sold in guitar stores and furniture stores for cleaning and polishing wood is a light decolorized paraffinic mineral oil, similar to medicinal mineral oil, with a lemon fragrance and sometimes a bit of yellow dye. Some of it's got silicone in it too, nowadays. Silicones are undesirable if you ever might refinish the guitar. Causes "fish eye" in new film coatings.

"Baby Oil" from the grocery, drug or department store is light medicinal mineral oil with a floral fragrance. Some of it's got extraneous junk like aloe vera extract, Vitamin E and such in it now, but the plain stuff is the same as standard "Lemon Oil," just with a different scent.

Countless guitarists have used "Lemon Oil" mineral oil on their fretboards with perfect satisfaction for many years. I have no doubt it works. I raised a concern about mineral oil deteriorating wood, from experience with old guns that have been repeatedly oiled with mineral oil for many decades. Oil soaked wood around a gun's action tends to become soft and punky. Wood is bundles of cellulose tubules glued together with lignin. Oil is a solvent for lignin, not a good one, but good enough to eventually soften the wood. I'm talking about 80-100+ year old guns, though. Few guitars will last that long, and none of us will be able to do a comparison test of fretboard lubricants over that time range, anyway. So use what you're happy with. I got started with olive oil many years ago, and haven't seen any reason to switch because it works. If lemon oil's working for you, great, stick with it. They don't mix.

The only other stuff I'd recommend steering clear of for fretboards is drying oils, like linseed oil, tung oil, walnut oil, fish oil... They're fine for finishing wood, but they're not lubricants. They dry to a gum. In a fine film that's been built up in hand rubbed (and wiped off) layers over weeks to months on something like a gunstock, they look and work well as a finish. Doesn't feel slick or oily at all. Some like that as a guitar body finish. But that's not going to serve the fretboard lubricating purpose, and it'll rub off in stringy bits much as dried rubber cement will. And most common vegetable oils are semidrying oils, that get sticky but never really dry. Yuck!

Someone usually comes along and says "I'll use stuff that's made specially for guitars." But there's no such thing. The sellers are just repackaging common bulk substances, usually stuff that's already in common use for furniture care. They're usually blends of mineral oils, silicones and waxes. Or just light mineral oil with a fragrance. There's nothing unique about the woods or finishes used on guitars, anyway.

I looked around the internet some time ago, when we had this discussion before. I found a site that was some sort of luthier's society in the US (I had the url, but can't find it any more), where lemon oil was specifically recommended for use on fretboards.
Taking a quick look, it would seem to be recommended by "Luthiers International", Tacoma Guitars, Ernie Ball Guitars and many others. The Guild of American Luthiers even has a treatise on the advantages of using lemon oil in conjunction with carnauba wax for treating fretboards. "Elderly Guitars" sells a product that is "often used after treating the fretboard with lemon oil". Whilst not a recommendation, they don't warn anyone against it's use.

I can't actually find anywhere (i.e. any luthiers) that says not to use lemon oil. It seems to be an urban myth - everybody's heard about it, but no-one ever presents any evidence from luthiers or scientists to substantiate the myth.

Googling further, it seems that the solvent, in cheap lemon oil, is naphtha. Take a look around at how many sites recommend that stuff for cleaning a fretboard (naphtha is a major constituent of lighter fluid).

Maybe I'll contact Mythbusters. :?