I have an electric guitar, and its fingerboard in is rough shape after years of barely touching it and being lent to my younger brother (big mistake). I unfortunately don’t have an instrument shop close, so I would have to order oil for it, and even the closest one only carries like 1 or 2 kinds of string kits and a few arranger keyboards, not cleaning products.

While I probably could get mineral oil (not at the moment of writing this, due to weekends), I’m wondering how well cooking oil would work. Tried some grapeseed oil on some other piece of wood, where it wouldn’t be a problem.

NOTE: Likely will go with the mineral oil, so I also have something to clean strings with.

  • blackbrook@mander.xyz
    1·
    4 days ago

    Pure tung. I do this all the time. On wood. Maybe you’re not putting a thin enough coat. Do you get a shine (without buffing)? Or do you get a matte finish?

    The cloth is just damp with it, just enough to leave a sheen on the wood. Now I do put the cloth in a closed container and reuse it several times without needing to put fresh oil on it. So it’s possible after the first coat its got a little bit of a start at polymerizing. But it remains damp, it doen’t get hard or sticky, so if it starts polymerizing, its not obvious.

    I’m doing this in my basement. No special curing conditions, no open window, no sunlight.

    Also, maybe wood vs plastic makes a difference.

    After thinking some, I should probably emphasize that I’m not claiming you can’t get a good result with a less extremely thin coat…perhaps the 2-3 days you state is a way to do that. Others do it by sanding between coats, a lot of buffing, or thinning with terps.

    I’ve gone toward doing it thinner over the years, but I have some good results from before I was as particular about thinness as I am now, but that have may have been because I happened not to get to it every 24 hours. I also have had problems from what was “too thick” to my mind, but possibly “not enough time between coats” is another valid take.

    I do think though, that there is a point where no amount of time will give you a good cure. If you get a weird spot in the wood that wants to drink up the oil, and you let it, that soaked in oil never properly cures and can remain a problem.