Someone’s lurking here, because I just got a pm, and here’s what was written: “You’re not playing enough, brother, because if you were, you’d know that the oil off your fingers will keep that neck lubricated.”
Point taken!
One other thing I found in my accessories box is something called “Finger Ease”, and it specifically says to spray it onto the fretboard and the back of the neck, and so I did that. I’m looking at my guitar now (the Galveston accoustic bass), and boy that stuff sure got drunk up quick by the rosewood!
Ah shit, I stand corrected by myself. There’s no way he could rest that thumb on the side of the body, is there? His fingers aren’t that damn long! :slaphead:.
So can we just say this guy has an unorthodox way of playing and let it go at that?
Sometimes I’ve been known to use gun oil instead of lemon oil. Smells good. Different, but good.
About that scrunchie: Someone said that you use that when tapping, so it mutes the open strings. Neat trick, worth remembering. Just slide it back and forth all flick-flick when you’re not using it or using it.
About Rocksmith: It came. It works… though they really recommend wiring the audio through RCA and not HDMI audio. Lag issues. That being said, wow. It works. Well. And I suck so baaaad. Been playing way too slow. Well, this’ll fix that.
Well, getting back to this bit: he’s dampening the sympathetic vibrations from the bits of string above the nut. You know the intro to Van Halen’sRunning With the Devil? (youtube link). Listen to about :18 in - the high plinks right before the main riff starts? That’s EVH dragging his pick up across those bits of the strings above the nut - and because he doesn’t have Guthrie’s fuzzy bit and no string trees on that homemade Frankenstrat, they plink like that.
String trees are design to eliminate the vibrations, but the strings can get hung up on the trees if you are a whammy kinda guy - so having the fuzzy bit does the trick with no tuning impacts.
Ah, that makes sense. I see the lack of string trees on Govan’s headstock now. Hmm, I thought string trees also served a second purpose of keeping the string profile lower so it wouldn’t pop off the nut during vigorous playing.
Yep - but those guys are superfast pickers with a lighter touch who don’t dig in like Stevie Ray and probably don’t have to worry about that as much. I do dig in, and I don’t use a whammy, so I like the string trees. However, when I made my homebrew Tele, I didn’t install one - simply hadn’t made it a priority. That changed: the sympathetic vibrations were loud and atonal - I quickly had to do something so I just put a string tree on…
Oiling fretboards is fine. Well, for rosewood anyway. The way I clean my fretboard is to take off all the strings*, clean it with very fine gauge steel wool and then apply a thin coat of lemon oil.
Use the steel wool with the grain. Lightly!Once all the finger gunk is off, wipe off the neck with a very lightly damp rag to get all the steel wool fragments. Then use a dry rag. Once it is all nice and clean, apply lemon oil with a rag. It does not take much and you should avoid getting the lemon oil on the finish. Let the lemon oil sit for a few minutes and then wipe it with a clean rag until any excess lemon oil is gone.
When you are done the board feels like butter. Of course I only do this once ever 6 months or so.
Slee
*Note, you should re-string guitars one string at a time most of the time. You can jack up intonation, etc if you are pulling off all the strings at once all the time.
Sit down for a sec, guitar geeks - I have a story.
So my son had to be in Manhattan yesterday for a 3-hour thing. Since I was the one taking him in, I would have a couple of hours to kill on the Upper East Side. So on Friday, I was checking out acoustic guitars on GBase and stumbled on an old vintage Gibson listed by someone I hadn’t heard of on the UES. Hey - maybe I can check it out during my wait.
I call the guy and he indicates that he may have an appointment elsewhere at that time - and I tell him I can’t guarantee I can make it since my son’s event comes first, so no worries if he can’t be there. The guy then starts checking me out - what do I do? Do I know and/or own any old guitars? etc. Sheesh. My answers must’ve checked out because we left it where I would call him after I dropped my son off.
So yesterday, I drop my son off and walk the 10 or so blocks to the street this guy is on. I call and hear that he just got back from a run and needed to clean up first - can he call me? Sure. 45 minutes later :rolleyes:I am reading my Kindle and prepared to walk back to my son’s event, when he calls and says he is ready. Okay, then, let’s see what’s going on. I walk up to an Upper East Side townhouse and knock on the door - the fella opens it; seems like a decent enough guy - and walks me into the study.
On the wall are over $1million worth of guitars.
A 1959 Les Paul Sunburst with gorgeous flamed maple
A 1958 Black LP Custom with 3 pickups
A 1957 LP Goldtop with the rarer black plastic parts (vs. normal cream) - the same guitar blues/rock phenom Joe Bonamassa used as the basis of his Custom Shop signature model
A 1958 Gretsch White Falcon
A 1959 Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins (aka a Brian Setzer guitar) with gorgeous maple
a 1953 Tele - one of the best I’ve seen
A 1937 Martin D-18 wideneck - and a second one he just go needed a bunch of fixing up
A 1953 SJ-200
…you get the idea - those are the ones I can remember.
Are you with me, guitar geeks?
I tried to just roll with it. He pointed out the guitar I wanted to check out - an old Gibson with a wonderful neck - and I started to play it a bit. He pulled one of the '37 D-18’s and played along. We were about the same level, but playing more of country stuff which he favored, so I followed along. He decided I was legit so he basically said “play whatever you like” and I pulled down guitars while he moved from song to song - I dropped in with chords or riffs as I was checking out the guitar. Fwiw, the '59 Les Paul was a wonderful example, played through a 60’s Vibroverb Fender Amp - but that '53 Tele was a whold 'nother level of great, probably because I am in a Tele mindset these days. The Martins and old Gibsons were all just fabulous.
Because he was late, I only had an hour and change before I had to head back. I am not in the position to pull the trigger on a purchase - I need to see if I want to invest time in trying to sell something to build a war chest - so he and I shook hands and agreed to get back in touch when I had a clearer sense of what I could do.
I was giddy like a little girl walking back to my son’s event - called a couple of friends and finally spazzed out and freaked.
Oiling an unfinished/unsealed wood fretboard (or fingerboard for fretless players) prevents it from drying out. It is done to rosewood fretboards but not to maple fretboards, which usually have a varnish or lacquer on them.
Most lemon oil is basically mineral oil with lemon scent added to it. Mineral oil is a non-curing oil, which means it “feels” dry, but it has not cured (changed). People put “butcher’s block oil” on their cutting boards. It is just over-priced mineral oil. Like a fretboard, it can be reapplied when it has dried out. It offers some protection to the fretboard (sweat, dirt, moisture, etc.).
Boiled linseed oil is an oil derived from the flax seed. You can get it at the hardware store. It is not really boiled, it has metallic driers added. These driers speed up the curing process. Without them, linseed oil takes a long time to dry and cure. It cures by a chemical reaction caused by oxidation. If you use BLO, do not just crumple up the rags and throw them away. There are different methods to dispose of them including laying them out to dry, hanging them, soaking them in water and then throw them away. Unless care is taken, they can spontaneously combust. Serious stuff - google it.
If you go the tung oil route, you have a few choices. Some products labeled “tung oil” have no tung oil in it. For instance, Formby’s Tung Oil Finish is really a wiping varnish - a varnish thinned with mineral spirits to be applied with a rag and left wet. You aren’t really “oiling” the fretboard, you are sealing it with a varnish. Another one, Minwax Tung Oil, is an oil/varnish blend - oil (maybe tung/maybe BLO), varnish, and mineral spirits. It is applied liberally and then wiped off. This could be used on fretboards; it will offer more protection than just oil, but if multiple coats are applied it will [slightly] change the natural feel of the wood. 100% pure tung oil will offer protection like BLO. People prefer tung oil because it cures lighter than BLO (which darkens wood a little bit) and offers a little more moisture protection. Once again dispose of rags wisely.
Both BLO and tung oil are a little on the thick side. They can be thinned with mineral spirits or turpentine to ease the application and quicken the cure time (less oil is applied). The solvent (mineral spirits or turpentine) evaporates.
If you use a curing oil (tung or BLO), remember the oil will not fully cure for ~24 hours, maybe longer depending on the temperature. Be sure to check the fingerboard periodically for oil seepage out of the pores - wipe them off or they will never cure (if it’s pure oil) or they will give you sticky spots (if it is an oil/varnish blend).
Tung oil has an exotic cache to it and is more expensive than BLO, but both of them work the same way and give pretty much the same results.
Some people like to sand the finish off the back of the neck and then oil them. It feels niiiiiiiiccce. Probably effects the value of a vintage instrument, but instruments are made to be played.
Holy crap. I would have just geeked solid on the spot. Perhaps burst into flame. No, NO way I’d keep my cool like you did and came out enjoying the experience. Great story, thanks for sharing!
Jeez, yourself. I was hoping some nerd would come along to answer that question. I was a little worried Quasi would start putting Mazola or Coppertone on his fretboard without some guidance. Ignorance fought, I-VI-ii-V, thanks!!
and no string trees on that homemade Frankenstrat, they plink like that.