Time is a cruel mistress when it comes to most mechanical or functional items – cars prefer to be driven than left sitting and guitars prefer to be played. That’s not to say they can’t be persuaded back into life!

I’ve seen some dusty mistresses in my time but this one has to be the thickest caking I’ve seen since the lasses make-up in year 11.

I’ll not rattle on too long about it, I’m well aware you just clicked this to see the satisfying before and after shots that I FOR ONCE made sure to get (for obvious reasons). I always find myself half way through a job before I realise that before photos are a thing, or at least should’ve been.

She needed the brushing of a lifetime to get the thick off then a few progressively cleaner microfibre cloths before hitting it with the alcohol. Once it was nice and tipsy I was able to get the final layer of time off and reveal quite a nice finish.

I have seen worse fretboards – this one was mostly corrosion and dust so there was thankfully no need for the joyous task of scraping off old finger goo 😅.

I started with steel wool to get the thick off, then gave the frets all a polish up through a few grades of paper and moved back to the wool, many passes and a lengthy soak in Thyn Oil of Thyn Lymon later, we have a freshly awakened board. Thankfully no lifting frets and no major levelling issues.

The nut height had clearly been causing havoc for years. I think this is ultimately why this guitar didn’t get much attention for so long. I can tell that it had previously been setup to combat the high nut height, compromising the rest of the setup and still resulting in an uncomfortable time. Nut height is such an underrated part of a setup and even a few thousandths usually makes a massive difference in feel. No exception here, she very much improved once the nut was brought down to an appropriate height.

Electronics cleared up pretty easily with the eviction of some dust and a spritz of contact cleaner and a spare machine screw brought the neck pickup back to the stage.

This isn’t even the most thorough clean-up/restoration that I offer! I said I wouldn’t rattle on too long. I did 🤷‍♂️😁