How to Clean and Polish Guitar Frets

Your guitar frets are turning black. Bends feel gritty. Notes sound dull even with fresh strings. The culprit isn't your technique, because oxidized fretwire is the real problem. Learning how to clean guitar frets at home is easier than you think.

Sweat, humidity, and neglect cause frets to rust over time, which chokes your sustain and ruins the playing experience. Fortunately, restoring your frets to a mirror shine is surprisingly easy. This guitar fret maintenance routine takes less than 30 minutes.

Welcome to Enya Music Workshop 104. In this guide, we'll show you how to safely prep your fretboard, remove stubborn oxidation, and polish your frets to a frictionless, silky-smooth finish.

#1 Prep Your Fretboard and Pickups

Tools You'll Need

To properly clean and polish guitar frets, you must first isolate the fretboard and electronics before introducing any abrasives.

Apply painter's tape tightly along the edges of the frets, covering the entire board. This keeps metal dust and liquid polish out of the wood grain.

Next, cover the pickups completely with a microfiber cloth and seal the edges with tape. Guitar pickups are powerful magnets. If left uncovered, loose metal dust can cause permanent damage to the electronics.

#2 Remove Oxidation with Steel Wool

With the guitar fully prepped, begin to remove oxidation from guitar frets using a small piece of 000-grade steel wool.

When using steel wool, remember to rub only along the length of the fret and never side to side. Keep your pressure firm but steady, focusing directly on the metal crown while trying to avoid the fretboard as much as possible.

Once finished, the frets will be clean and free of rust, but they will look dull. Now move on to the polishing steps below.

#3 Multi-Stage Buffing Polish

Now, let's do a multi-stage polish using the buffing block.

Start with the 1000-grit side. Rub lengthwise along each fret, applying firm and even pressure. Work the block thoroughly to erase the fine scratches left behind by the steel wool.

After completing the initial pass, flip the block over to the 4000-grit side and repeat the same motion. The frets will now be bright and shiny, bringing back that original metal look.

#4 Mirror Shine with Metal Polish

Following the buffing process, the frets are now ready for the metal polish. This is the definitive step to a flawless mirror shine and frictionless string bends.

Apply a pea-sized amount onto each fret. Spread it evenly across the crown. Let it sit undisturbed for three minutes to react with the metal surface.

Then use a clean microfiber cloth to buff the frets under firm pressure until all dark residue is completely removed.

#5 Final Cleanup

Peel off all the painter's tape and remove the protective cloth from the pickups. Give the fretboard a final thorough wipe-down to remove any remaining stray particles.

With the fretboard fully cleaned and restored, the guitar is ready to restring. See Workshop #101: How to Restring Your Guitar for the proper technique.

Try a few bends and feel the difference. Clean frets make every note clearer and every bend smoother.