Official Luthiers Forum!

I'm in the process of buying a new guitar (only 305 to go!) and its a black 2007 strat with a roaswood fretboard. I bought it because it was on sale for 850 during boxing day but I was really looking for a maple neck strat instead. I've heard that some people have put lemon oil on the fretboard to give it that maple neck feel, does this work and what else would work without damaging the wood.

Would it b e bad to put 11's on it in standard?

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" Blues is a low down achin chill, if you ain't never had it, I hope you never will."

Robert Johnson

The lemon oil will not damage the wood but it will transfer to your hand and fingers and thereby to your strings. leaving dust and dirt and grim build up in the valley between winding pitches. This will kill the tone of the strings in very short order.

A fretboard should need only a regular wipe down with a lightly damp lint free cloth after each playing session. Oh and use distiled water for this and not much at all. Wash your hands before you play will also help keep your fretborad clean and fast.

If you want a rosewood neck to be fast first improve your technique to the point wire no added tension is applied to fret other than what is needed to break the string over the fret.

Now as far as slick feel to the fretboard you can have a luthier burnish the rosewood and for a long while it will be slicker than snot. But it is a rosewood and not maple fretboard. The difference you feel is because rosewood (most likely Indian rosewood) is a fairly open pore wood maple on the other hand is a very closed pore wood. They will never feel the same.

Look at my "Ebonade" thread. The impact is even greater on rosewood. Did you ask this over on MLP?mike

MLP being?

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" Blues is a low down achin chill, if you ain't never had it, I hope you never will."

Robert Johnson

MLP = My Les Paul. A member there wanted to get more density in a rosewood FB-on a Strat. MLP is equal opportunity guitar tips site. I wish I could portray just what my messing around with CA accomplished. I am going after everything in the place except my Orville, and right now, that is a bunch of in the works guitars. The rosewood is very labor intense-side benefit is the collateral fret job.mt

Dan Erlewine talks about his process with pure linseed oil (not boiled linseed oil) on pages 12-13 of How to Make Your Electric Guitar Play Great. He talks about lemon oil a bit too, saying that it's good for softening buildup and cleaning your fretboard, but not for protecting the wood.

I saw a discussion on lemon oil on another forum last year - the stuff called lemon oil is apparently mineral oil with some lemon scent added, and it has no wood conditioning properties - it can actually cause the wood to dry out. I've been using the StewMac fretboard oil on my rosewood fingerboards for about 6 years with good results.

--Steve

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---Steve

You can put 11 on her no problem. The question is can your fingers handle 11's? If so then no worries. You will need a whole new set up switching to 11's. Adjustment of the trussrod, and intonation at the bare minimum. If it's new anyway you might as well do the whole set up and get the action where you want it. Which means lowering it to some degree on a brand new strat. If you have never done a set up before you can check out the Fender site. It walks you through the entire process. It is easier to do then most guitarists think. That is why alot of them just pay $50-$100 or more for someone else to do it for them. Here is the link to the Fender site with the instructions for a strat set up
http://www.fender.com/support/stratocaster.php

If you have done set ups before then you already know all this

I've had 9's,10's, and 11's on my strats. In the end I always end up back at the 10's to keep my fingers from getting tore up.

Elevens will be fine. Make sure to adjust the truss rod properly. This is something you need to do when switching gauges.

You can get aluminum tape and neatly cut out pieces to fit in between the frets. This will give you a very fast fingerboard, but not a very pretty fingerboard.

Are you sure you don't want to hold out for the maple neck?

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It's not the miles ahead, it's the stone in your shoe


In Markham,Virginia

+1. Wait until you can afford the one you really want.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.