I'm not asking anyone to read this, but if you do, I would appreciate feedback negative or positive if you have it. This will be going on my website once I have those demo videos made. I especially value input from novices and people who don't know anything about guitars.

Polishing Frets

Polishing the frets might sound like it’s just a cosmetic matter, but it’s a bit more than just looks. While yes, cleaning up your frets will help your guitar look nice and shiny, you are also removing a lot of film and build-up which can hurt tone, prevent corrosion and oxidation which can stain the fretboard and your fingers and possibly extend the life of your frets.

Most guitars are fretted using “nickel silver” which is an alloy of copper, nickel and zinc. This alloy can oxidize which causes it to turn colors which can sometimes leach into the fretboard and also stain your fingers. Sometimes this oxidation can even form a gritty crystal like powdery material that can be really gross, but also be fairly abrasive against the fret wire. The later is an extreme case, but I have seen it enough that I thought it was worth mentioning.

One of the main reasons you want to clean your frets is that the gunk that builds up on them, while gross can also hurt your tone. Your strings sound best when they are pressed against a hard piece of metal. When that metal is covered in gunk, you are fretting your string against gunk. This can have the effect of making your strings sound dead, or even slightly muted.

There are a number of methods I use for cleaning frets depending on the type of fretboard and type of frets I am dealing with. I’ll cover the basics here.

Maple Fretboards

Maple fretboards are different from rosewood or ebony because they are covered in a clear coat to protect the wood from oxidizing and reacting with your skin. Not all fretboards with clear coat are maple, but all maple fretboards will have some kind of finish. Notable non-maple finished boards might be the finished bubinga board that you see on some Rickenbackers. Anyway, the reason I mention these first is that I DON’T want to hear about people taking steel wool to an unprotected finished board. It will make the finish look horrible and might even strip it off.

Method 1 ( video demonstration yet to be made)

Don’t use this method on older instruments or ones where the finish has worn through in spots.

On newer guitars (1980s and newer) that have that thick poly finish on their boards, I will usually opt for the quickest method which is to take a clean rag or shop towel with a little bit of Meguiar's polishing compound on it and just give the frets a nice hand rubbed polish. The polishing compound -is- abrasive so this is not something you want to do every day, but if you keep this to a “when it needs it” ,basis and focus on the frets, not the finish, you shouldn’t have any issues. To clean up the gunk left over by the polishing compound, use a different clean rag or shop towel with with a healthy spritzing of Dunlop 65 cleaner/polish.

Method 2 (video demonstration yet to be made)

(When doing this on electric guitars, take the blue painters tape you will be using and tape over the pickups to prevent steel wool fibers from sticking to them. It’s a pain in the butt when that happens!)

This method is particularly recommendable on older instruments or on instruments that have had the finish worn through in some spots You can use some blue painters tape, preferably after reducing its adhesion by sticking it a few times to your T-shirt and mask the finish between the frets. You can mask the whole board at once, or if you are like me and like to save a little in material, you can use the same pieces several times and just do one fret at a time like I demonstrate here ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nb_.....1qw&t=111s ). When you have the board masked off, you can use 0000 or 00000 steel wool to clean up the frets safely without damaging the board. To clean the steel wool dust, take the guitar away from your work surface (and anything you don’t want steel wool on) an BLOW THE DUST OFF. Do not wipe, scrub or brush it away. It is abrasive and will scratch the finish of the instrument.

Rosewood and ebony fretboards

Unlike maple fretboards, rosewood and ebony are typically just bare wood with no finish. This means you can be a little rougher with them while cleaning and take steel wool directly to them. On electric guitars, you will still want to mask off the pickups to prevent steel wool fibers from sticking to them. To repeat what I said above, because this is worth repeating, it is a pain in the butt when steel wool fibers stick to magnetic pickups.

So, for cleaning frets on unfinished fretboards, simply take some 0000 or 00000 steel wool and clean the frets directly. I like to take five or so light strokes per fret going against the grain but along the fret to start out so I can really get into the corners at the base of the fret. Then I will follow that up by doing a bunch of strokes with the grain to give both the frets and the board a nice shine.

To clean the steel wool dust, take the guitar away from your work surface (and anything you don’t want steel wool on) an BLOW THE DUST OFF. Do not wipe, scrub or brush it away. It is abrasive and will scratch the finish of the instrument.

When I do this here at the shop, I will also follow up by taking the fretboard to my buffing wheel and really giving those frets a heck of a nice shine.

On unfinished boards, you should follow up fret cleaning by conditioning the fretboard.