Originally Posted by: earthman buckI've never oiled my guitar ever, and it's fine. Oil is a preference thing, isn't it?

I think it's more a maintenance thing on rosewood neck guitars. As far as I can see, of my close to a dozen guitars, only 2 have maple fretboards and have a lacquer finish on 'em. On the rosewoods, it seems like there's no finish on 'em. I only just started oiling my rosewoods with lemon oil and it seems like the oil seeps right into the wood. I think this is to keep the wood from drying out. On my maples, when I see gunk buildup I just use some kinda cleaner- I think it's actually called "GunK Oil".

Good thread starter. After nearly 40 yrs of playing and owning various instruments, I've treated them like crap, been careless with them, dropped them, you name it. It was only recently that I started to really maintain and clean them, do my own setups, and have just about all the tools necessary to keep them in shape.