"I condition my fretboards with Bore Oil." Hahaha, I love it ;-) I use Hoppe's No:9 to clean all my guitars, and my wife loves the smell too... ;-)
NOT!
Old E Scratch Cover is great stuff (and getting harder to find in stores), and I use it on nicked up areas on electric guitars sometimes, makes a newer booboo look like it's been around a long time, which is nice for a guy like me who likes the vintage look.
Watco is great stuff too, has a lot longer lasting smell, can be little bit unpleasant indoors.
I have a bottle of "Goertz Honey Oil" I've had for so long it went rancid, but it was from a friend and guitar store owner who passed away way too soon, and I keep it for that reason but don't use it anymore.
Walnut oil is great for wood, no smell.
The grunge that builds up on the fingerboard, the "DNA", I've had mixed results cleaning before, nowadays I use warm soapy water and a no scratch sponge. In my recent experience, a water based cleaner/liquifier was more effective than a solvent based cleaner, but lighter fluid (Naphta) and Goo Gone are both great products for gunk removal also, just depends what you are trying to remove.
Goo Gone is pretty harmless stuff, has never hurt anything on a guitar I've worked on yet, but it's not that kind to yr fingertips, dries out the skin, so does lighter fluid.
DO NOT CONFUSE Goo Gone with Goof Off, that stuff is a DISASTER around plastics or any kind of guitar finishes!
0000 steel wool won't hurt anything unless you really get obnoxious with it, and even when doing some "extreme polishing" with it, I've never had a problem. Of course all the steel wool I've seen lately is from China, so use carefully until familiar with its characteristics.
I have some old USA steel wool that's my special stash, back from when a lot of simple things said Made in USA...
Finally, I need to broadcast this PSA on something related to polishing.
Stay away from Microfiber or at least use very carefully!
I've been going back and forth between old fashioned terry cloths and cotton T shirts and Microfiber for years... Which one is better, which one does a better job? As you guys know I just recently polished the satin finish D4 to a very high gloss, and I used two terry cloths mostly, but also some Microfiber, and afterwards, there were some scratches I couldn't take out, although I did buff, and rebuff, and rebuff...
Also wondering if cotton is probably better for the old Nitro finishes, and maybe Microfiber better for the newer Poly finishes?
So... the other day, I'm polishing the guitar I just got, the guitar I shouldn't have gotten, a guitar I've been wanting real bad lately and finally found a deal I couldn't pass up (thx eBay;-), a vintage doubleneck (6/12) electric. I was trying to figure out how I was going to hide it (impossible), and the day it came - a week ago today - I had to "tell her" about it, because (rotten timing), it was out for delivery the day I was running off to town to have both my right side wisdom teeth pulled out... Oh Joy, the day had finally come, (I'm 55, so this is not something I'd wish on anyone).
Anyway, she actually signed for the package, and guessed it was a doubleneck before I even opened the box...
So, I'm checking it out, and it's great except the guy put way too much of this super HD bubblewrap in the case, and it left the back of the guitar, and part of the front looking like a checkerboard, bummer!!!!! It left imprints in the finish, first time I'd ever seen it this bad.
So I get the polishes out and start working on it, I got the back looking good (Meguiar's Cleaner Wax), and (I'm working in the shade and I can see the finish real well), and now I'm working the front of the guitar between the tailpieces and the bottom of the body when TO MY HORROR I see a few deep scratches appear on the guitar that weren't there before. I stop! I start polishing a spot (I'm removing the wax at this point so it's the final polish), and sure a $h*T, that fn microfiber is putting a lone but deep scratch in the finish.
There was or had to be something lodged in the cloth that was doing this, grrr.... and it took me a while to get rid of the scratches I've inflicted in the finish, and actually, they're not totally gone and will probably never be ;-(
Settles it for me, NEVER, EVER use Microfiber on guitars again (it's better for dashboards, computer keyboards, etc...), it can trap something scratchy in the loops and that can and will scratch the finish on your guitar, and I'm not talking micro swirlies either...
Good, but hard lesson to learn, but at least now I know, and I will never do it again.
Probably only Adorshki remembers me complaining about the finish on the Guild, saying that there were some heavy scratches on it I couldn't buff out all the way, and I'm guessing it was from that same final polish cloth I was using. Damn!!! Unbelievable... I was scratching the guitar while supposedly trying to make it look beautiful...
Oh well, just get over it I guess, and polish it again sometime... this time leave the microfiber where it belongs, which not around guitars.
Your mileage may vary ;-)