Fret polishing and wood waxing! (Pics inside)

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I'm not sure if this is the right place for this type of thread, if so I apologize.

First off i'm new here, but so far I like it very informative and friendly!
This week I got my first Warwick bass, its a 2003 (I think) Corvette standard. My favorite part is, its a lefty!
Today my order of Warwick Beeswax came in and I was planning on waiting until my Elixir strings arrived also, but got bored so I went ahead and gave it a few coats of wax.
While the strings were off I decided to give the frets a little polish and WOW what a difference! I bought this bass used so I didn't know what they are supposed to look like so I was really surprised at the results.

ps any other left handed players here?

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Heres the stuff I used (black magic) notice how dry the fretboard looks here.
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This is after one coat of wax on the fretboard, a bit of a difference.
IMAG0269.jpg

And here it is all strung up and ready to be sexy!
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Nice work mate.
Ya know, alotta folks will tell ya not to wax the fingerboard, but the factory actually reccomend it in the FAQ's section. Lemon oil is good too, it cleans as well as conditions. But so does wax. & wax is actually an oil too, solidified at room temperature ;)
 
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Thanks.
At first I wasn't planning on waxing the fretboard but then I read here that its okay to. I'm glad I did because it looks a lot better and darker now.
 
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ALB

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Did you flip the photo of your bass? Why is it backwards? ;) Just joking :d The Vette looks really good after the cleaning... good job. BTW, welcome to the forum.
 
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Thanks for the welcome ALB. Im used to the lefty jokes no problems there, but at least Warwick didn't forget to put frets in mine. ;)
 

Florin

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Thanks for the welcome ALB. Im used to the lefty jokes no problems there, but at least Warwick didn't forget to put frets in mine. ;)

Now that's a new member you can have fun with :)

Welcome to the forum buddy !
 
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Nice job!!!!
I had a similar experience, even with the Elixir's :) , but the frets on my bass were even dirtier than yours so the difference after cleaning them was atonishing
 
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I was surprised at how big of a difference there was. I was even more surprised at how easy it was to clean them, it only took a couple seconds per fret. Next time ill use a dremel tho. :p Now that I know how easy they are to clean they will probably never get that bad again. :)
 
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It took me about 2 hours and a lot of hard rubbing to get all frets shining. My thumb was painful after I finished!!!
 
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Wow, what product did you use? I just use the black magic wheel polish in the picture and a microfiber. Overall counting breaking the bass down, waxing the wood, taping off all the frets then polishing and restringing/tuning it took me about two hours. Also, I would tape off a couple frets then polish, then tape off a couple more and so on to avoid fatigue.

P.S. thinking of breaking down my Warwick, I love the bridge design, its so smart and easy to get the strings out. You don't have to straighten the coiled end out at all, less likely to break.
 

BassPlyr Randy

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Welcome to the Forum. Your bass looks stunning and you did a great job cleaning it up. The only thing I see wrong with it at all, is you're right, it's good that warwick at least put frets in your neck, but I couldn't help notice they used right handed frets on it. ;) I sure hope that doesn't affect its sound. And yes, Im joking. Again, Welcome to the forum. BTW, my Brother is a lefty, but he doesn't play... Well he fiddles with his acoustic guitar, and even saying that is being generous.
 

BassPlyr Randy

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Just to point out a couple things, but not to say anything against what you did, its was a beautiful job, just throwing out general information.

Why a lot of people say no to using wax on a fret board .... For the most part that is a generalization that people repeat without really knowing why. Oil adds moisture to the fretboard and keeps it from drying out. A Wax can/will protect the fretboard, not only from drying out, but also it will protect it from foriegn material getting into the pores of the wood. That is also the down side of using a wax on the fretboard. But it's not using a wax on the fretboard that is the problem, it is using the wrong wax on the fret board that causes a problem. Using just a standard paste wax is where the problem arises. As the wax drys, it turns white (or some other color) and leaves your fretboard looking speckled and basically pretty funky looking. And we all know, young and/or inexperienced players can sometimes run out there, half cocked, and grab the first thing they see and use it on their instruments to adverse effects, so I think that is where the no wax mythology came from. Personally I use Howards Feed and Wax on my fretboards. It gives me the best of both worlds. An Orange Oil for cleaning and moisturizing the board and a liguid Beeswax for protecting the board. I used to only use Lemon oil on my boards, but several luthiers had reccommended that Howards to me, and Ive been using it ever since. Oh, and it smells wonderful too. General what I do is give the board a quick cleaning with Naptha just to get the board clean and remove the old wax and nicotine residue. Then I treat the board with the Howards. Afterwards, I hand buff the board with a clean, dry, soft rag. This makes sure it is really dry, but also, adds a nice shine to the board; a bonus to using the wax.

The other thing I just wanted to mention was fret polising. I too love the look of shinning clean frets. But the only thing I wanted to mention is tape. In the above pictures it looked like the OP used a standard masking tape. This is ok, especially if you don't press it down to hard on the board,or leave it on too long, but it can leave an adhiesve on the board, so I always use a low tact tape, which is readily available at any hardware or painting supply store. It's just one of those, peace of mind things for me.

Anyway, thats it for me. Just wanted to throw out a couple tips that I use.
 
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Thanks for the advise Randy, ill look for some other products next time I do a good cleaning. This time was kinda spur of the moment bacause I didnt think that my wax shipment would show up on a Saturday. I just Googled naptha oil, I guess ill make sure nobody smokes near my bass until it dries. :) Or at all for that matter.:p

P.S. I didn't realize the frets were right handed, should I take it to a luthier and have them flipped around?
 
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BassPlyr Randy

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Haha Generally I smoke while I clean my basses... then again, I seem to always have a cigarette going. Explains why I have so much nicotine residue to clean off my basses. I guess it also explains my poor health, but that is another story all together...


And sorry, no, flipping Right handed frets over won't work. Then you would just have backward Right handed frets and that would just make everything you play sound backward. Sort of like a speaker cabinet improperly wired so that the speakers were out of phase with each other. I did some research and found out that there is a reason they put right handed frets on a lefty bass. Generally speaking, there are more right hand guitar players in the world than left handed players. Obviously the right handed instruments have right handed frets, so by putting right handed frets on a lefty instrument, they ensure that instrument is in phase with the righty instrument. So I hate to break it to ya Bro, your just living in a right handed controlled world , and this is just another reminder of that. Hey, atleast they make Lefty bodies.

You know, that kind of stuff used to really piss my brother off that a lot of things are clearly designed from a right handed standpoint with no thought to left handed people at all. So he would have believed that BS story I just told and got mad about it... hahahahaha
 

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And sorry, no, flipping Right handed frets over won't work. Then you would just have backward Right handed frets and that would just make everything you play sound backward. Sort of like a speaker cabinet improperly wired so that the speakers were out of phase with each other. I did some research and found out that there is a reason they put right handed frets on a lefty bass. Generally speaking, there are more right hand guitar players in the world than left handed players. Obviously the right handed instruments have right handed frets, so by putting right handed frets on a lefty instrument, they ensure that instrument is in phase with the righty instrument. So I hate to break it to ya Bro, your just living in a right handed controlled world , and this is just another reminder of that. Hey, atleast they make Lefty bodies.

Actually, you can make it work - it's just a slight variation in technique. If you flip right handed frets over you will find that everything sounds backward, but if you string the bass upside-down and play it with the strings facing back toward your body it all evens out.

Of course you'll need to switch the saddles, too. Second thought, leave the saddles alone and stand on your head. Perfect!
 

BassPlyr Randy

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Stand on your head ... OMG, it's so simple.... You know that would actually solve two problems ..... I have often thought that a lefty being on stage ruins the visual of all the guitars pointing the same direction, and I just figured the only solution was for the left handed player to play with his back to the audience, but their standing on their head would allow them to face the audience but slove the visual problem ... That is pure genius Doc. Hell, there may be a future for leftys after all.
 
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Wait wait wait! Stand on my head? But wouldn't the sound waves travel to the headstock instead of to the pickups that way?
 
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