This is great stuff.I use it on all my rosewood and pau ferro fretboards and it feeds and restores life as well as darkening .Unlike dyes it wont stain your inlays either .I wear gloves myself ,clean the pau ferro with lighter fluid first leave the relic wax for 12 hours and finish up with instrument food .It does seem to get any darker if you leave it more than 12 hrs so I just repeat if needed ,
I never liked PF because of the look, the colours and inconsistency. I’m sure it’s fine as a hardwood and won’t affect the sound. The problem is there’s lots of Mexican made models I like that have it. Fender have brought it back for some of the Vintera 2 guitars but they seem to vary in consistency with some looking very streaky. I’ll probably try a PF board again at some point.
That was more dramatic than I had thought. I would think another 2-3 applications would really look nice. You’re absolutely right. So many people, including myself, get really turned off by how bright the wood is. With that wood having the wax, and oil, I would certainly think it would warm up the tone coming off the neck. Have you notice any difference in the sound itself after treating the wood? GREAT video.
There’s no real tonal advantage. It’s more cosmetic than anything else. With two or three applications you certainly can get rid of that dry and dusty look and feel of pao ferro. The funny thing is I’ve had guitars that have a pao ferro fretboard and the guitar company has already treated the wood, so it doesn’t have to be like that in the first place. I think it’s Reverend who use pao ferro and pre-treat the wood.
@@DarrenLockMusic I agree…. These companies are cutting costs in every way possible. I’m trying to get over my issues with Pau Ferro. At the end of the day, the sonic differences are very minimal. But, yeah, the look is a big part of it. Seeing them hanging on the wall next to Rosewood, or even ebony, they just look cheap. But, these days I can’t afford to make purchases on that alone. That said, some of the Pau Ferro fretboard’s I’ve seen look incredible, and very “rich”. I’ve got my eye on a 2017 tele that I swear is Rosewood, given how dark and rich it looks. So, I may pull the trigger on it. There are some killer buys on the Pau Ferro strats/tele’s for those of us that can get past that part of it. So, this video was really helpful. Thanks again.
The visual aspect is one thing, but there's also a "feel" that you get with pao ferro that I'm not a fan of. I don't know if it is psychological or that I'm so used to rosewood, but the PF boards always feel a little gritty to me - and again this is down to bad finishing at source. I have a Fender fretless bass that has a PF board and I spent a lot of time sanding it with fine sandpaper to smooth it out and using this application to make it look more like rosewood. But this all should happen at the factory...
@@DarrenLockMusic Yes! I forgot about that. Although, with these lower end MIM guitars, the Rosewood had the same problem. My strat is from 2007-2008, and I had to take some fine-grit paper to that, as well. I've come to the conclusion that, short of buying a $4K guitar (and even those can have their problems), were living in a day and age to where, we're better off investing in some tools, and learning (at minimum) some intermediate guitar maintenance skills. In my case, I'm happy to pay someone to do that kind of work. But, these days, even in a big city like Orlando, FL...it's becoming impossible finding a *truly* competent luthier, who knows EXACTLY what they're doing, that's also affordable. I'm 52yrs old, and remember when luthiers were in every guitar shop on town. Another reason videos like these are so incredibly helpful to us relatively new at playing (or maintaining) this instrument.
Pau Ferro is a very hard type of wood that makes it very difficult for the wax to penetrate. I find the result deplorably bad and on top of that the wax is also very expensive! I think that if you play a lot and treat your fretboard with lemon oil (much cheaper) every time you change strings, you will achieve the same result in a while!
I can agree with you. I'm applying lemon oil to my pau ferro fretboard of my fender vintera, is becoming darker and very nice (imho). Also the wood looks more "healthy", before it was too dry I think, but I'm not a liuther so I don't really know about this...
