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My Warmoth guitar has a rosewood neck, and I absolutely love the feel of the bare wood. However, I'd like to oil it with something so that it doesn't dry out. I was originally going to use tung oil, but I'm told I'd have to seal the wood with laquer or epoxy first, and that sort of defeats the purpose of the rosewood neck. I also have teak oil and rosewood oil available. The teak oil seems like it would work well, but how would it react to rosewood as apposed to teak. The rosewood oil probably couldn't hurt, but would it actually do anything or would it just soak in? For unfinished maple (the back of the neck) use tung oil. Look for oil that they used on the stocks of rifles.

For the actual fretboard use something like Guitar Honey if you need to.

Is the entire neck rosewood (the back part touching your palm?)
Or just the fretboard (the part you play on, the frontside with inlays)?

If the back of the neck is raw (unsealed) wood, tung oil is generally recommended.

For fretboards, there's several different routes, most of which come from personal preference. I like to use basic lemon oil (100% pure lemon oil, NOT lemon pledge or lemon juice), but I know plenty of other guys use various oils based on their tastes. I don't know whether or not lemon oil would be recommended for the back of a neck, but I imagine it would be quite slick if you did...

The neck is rosewood, the fretboard is ebony. I'm asking about the neck.

I had talked to a luthier who recomended tung oil, but he told me the neck MUST be sealed first because the oil in rosewood won't mix with tung oil.

Then I'm not seeing the use of oiling the neck if you're sealing it? Unless you just want an ultra-slick feel and lots of tung oil on your hands?

Hopefully someone else will come along with more expertise than me...I thought this was going to be a fairly cut and dry (no pun!) situation...hmmm...perplexing.

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it's not for rosewood but the idea is the same.


Originally Posted by KenThen I'm not seeing the use of oiling the neck if you're sealing it? Unless you just want an ultra-slick feel and lots of tung oil on your hands?

Hopefully someone else will come along with more expertise than me...I thought this was going to be a fairly cut and dry (no pun!) situation...hmmm...perplexing.That's exactly what I thought!

And the link is about a maple neck, which isn't the same as rosewood because rosewood has its own oil that apparently is resistant to tung oil.

On your setup, I'd worry more about the fretboard than the neck. There's no need to apply a sealing oil like Tung to a rosewood neck any more than to a rosewood fretboard. PRS has been doing unfinished rosewood necks for about a decade and doesn't seem to have any problems with 'em.

Ebony, on the other hand, is much more prone to drying and cracking. It'd probably be fine just to apply whatever conditioner to the back of the neck that you apply to the fretboard.

Interesting. Someone suggested linseed oil, I'll give that a try.


Originally Posted by mnbaseball91The neck is rosewood, the fretboard is ebony. I'm asking about the neck.

I had talked to a luthier who recomended tung oil, but he told me the neck MUST be sealed first because the oil in rosewood won't mix with tung oil.

Leave it unfinished....that´s one of the beautiful things about rosewood necks, is that they don´t need a finish

Leave it unfinished and apply either lemon oil, mineral oil, or rosewood oil to the neck about twice a year. Rosewood won't dry out very easily, so it doesn't need oiled too often. Ebony on the other hand will get dry and brittle if it's not oiled. I would oil the fretboard every three months or so. There really aren't any rules as to how often to oil the neck/fretboard, it just depends on the wood and the climate you live in. I notice that the rosewood board on my Hamer tends to get pretty dry after a while, so I lightly oil it every four months or so. On the other hand, some people go years without oiling rosewood and it's fine.

Ryan

For my rosewood board I use Dr. Stringfellow's Lem-oil, it puts a nice shine on and keeps it feeling good. Like was stated earlier, I'd worry more about the ebony, and if it was me I'd use the same thing, we use Lem-oil in the shop I work in.

My dad used to use Linseed oil, and (believe it or not) spray silicone. In retrospect, it did a good job!

Luke

So that's a thumbs up for rosewood oil on the neck and lemon oil on the fretboard?

I don't want to put lemon oil on the neck itself because it tends to be VERY greasy.

Linseed Oil is probably the best. In Dan Erlewine's book, he discouraged the use of Lemon Oil to clean or oil fingerboards since it mainly consists of water. He recommended using Linseed oil to condition the fretboard, so I suggest that if you want to oil your neck.

Don't use Tung Oil. Tung Oil is a thin varnish. If you use too much it leaves a gloss.