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After a recent thread I started and saw very few people burnish, or even know what it is I decided to do some education. I changed strings on my Heritage on Thursday D!ck was a wonderful assistant/student and took pictures of the process as we went.

Here is the fingerboard before anything was done, note the cloudiness of the frets from oils, and sweat.Next it's good to wipe down the neck with a preliminary cleaner, you can use Dunlop 65, or Planet Waves Mirror finish....whatever you have around. But I prefer good, old fashioned funiture polish, it doesn't have all the waxes that you'll find in the guitar polishes.Usually I'll use a clean house rag, but that night I used just a regular paper towel. You'll get your paper towel looking like this probably.I masked the fingerboard wood with post it notes, amazing little inventions, they are sticky, but leave no residue. If you will look here in these pictures you will see the lines from the strings on the frets.Here I am burnishing the fretwire with 0000 grade steel wool.Here it is burnished.Here is a comparison of a burnished fret, to a non-burnished fret. Note the cloudiness of the left fret when compared to the one on the right.Now when you get high beside the neck pup make sure that every time you move your mask you clean it so as to minimize the filings that could potentially get on your guitar. This is picture is the back mask extending over the pup from the 22nd fret. If you look closely you can see the shavings pulled into pattens by the polepieces. Now be careful when you take this one off so as not to dump the shavings on the pup. Also by the 19-22 fret your post-it notes are about worn out so hold them with your free fingers to make sure they don't move around.Now After I'm done I use air pressure to make sure there are no filing on my guitar.Then I oil the fingerboard, I use Kyser Dr. Stringfellow's Lem Oil.

You put in some more elbow grease and your papertowel will pick up even more dirt, and grit. See how she shines?Hope this helps you guys have better feeling, better playing guitars! A special thanks to D!ck for being the photographer.

Luke

Afterwards you use positive reinforcement to reward yourself for doing a good job.Then you start playing slide!

I also used furniture polish on the body after it is blown off, if anyone wondered. Yes I am re-growing my beard before I hear any smart remarks!

I never thought about using Post-It notes. Thanks for the tip.

playin slide with a guinness !! are u irish? nice job man, the difference is spectacular.

Good Info....... I basically do the same thing when I change strings. About 2 to 3X a year I tape off the entire fingerboard and put the frets on a buffing wheel. It makes them shine like a mirror.

Cool tutorial! Thanks! I want to try it on my guitars now.

I'd say this is vault worthy... maintaining your guitar properly is really important imo

Vault, and make sure you always host those pictures!

In addition to watching this through the entire process and SEEING the difference firsthand, I also got to FEEL the difference. It's like night and day when you're doing bends. The oiling makes the neck a little faster, too. But bending is where you'll really tell the difference.

And it really makes my ebony fingerboard on my Jackson look pretty.

playing slide guitar with a guinness,(after doing all that cleaning and pollishing to your guitar)BRILLIANT!!!

Great post! I'll have to try that soon.

Good thread, good pics too (I am also in favour of using positive reinforcement to reward yourself for doing a good job.)

Thanks Luke!

great thread luke .. pics make it A

vault!

cheers
t4d

Thanks for the praise guys! Yes tape is very nice, but I am in the habit of doing this every string change, so to keep my work down a bit I use the post-it notes, not to mention they leave no residue!

Luke

Why is it that I never see pictures posted in here?


Originally Posted by ZhangliqunWhy is it that I never see pictures posted in here?
Try looking at the bottom of your preferences, you can turn on and off img's.

Luke

Quick question - how would sandpaper fair for burnishing?


Originally Posted by CronoDLQuick question - how would sandpaper fair for burnishing?

It would depend on the grit, I would'nt use anything very harsh, otherwise you just end up with scatched up looking fretwire. If it is the very very high grit used for auto finishing it should be fine I guess, I would have to compare the feel to the steel wool to know for sure.

Luke

Sandpaper is a big no no, even if you're using something like wet/dry 2000 grit or something like that, it's still gonna eat the frets more than you want it to. If you own a dremel, go to home depot, or Ace hardware, or wherever, and get the dremel polishing kit. You wanna talk about some shiney frets? Man oh man.

Thanks a lot...very informative!

The Heritage looks great, BTW!