Grey digit caper

[Ripper]

Guys...
I got my new Les Paul today, and although im over the moon, I noticed my fingers were grey after about half an hour of playing?

Any thoughts?....I dont think the strings were old.

[ccso8462]

Don't know what to tell you. My biggest problem with grey is in my hair. What's left of it, that is. ;D

[Ripper]

I hear you my friend!.....Im in the same boat.

[wolf]

I thought you were talking about your new band Grey Digit Caper.

But seriously, when I play a new guitar I usually get some kind of metallic discoloring too. Maybe it is the strings and maybe it is some kind of fretboard material?
For me, this effect is really noticeable because when I get a new guitar, I'll almost always treat the fretboard with mineral oil. This makes the guitar playing kind of messy for a few weeks but I believe it is a good thing for the fretboard.

[andy]

I quite often find that happens too.

I have to say that I am obsessively... well, obsessed with keeping my hands clean when I play guitar, and have noticed that stuff comes off the fingerboard sometimes.

The same as Wolf above, I will usually treat a rosewood fingerboard immediately after purchase- personally I use FastFret- which seems to clean off any dirt, polish, or other factory/shop grime, and also soaks into the board keeping it supple and more resistant to moisture. In fact, I keep applying it until it stops soaking in, then wipe it dry, restring it with the old strings and play the thing in. The oil 'sweats' back out, and seems to be pushed out by the pressure of playing for a while, but then (to my OCD mind at least) has the right degree of oil saturation to keep the board dry, but smooth to the touch. I'll go through half a bar of soap in this process, but it certainly gets that 'board looking and feeling good.

[Ripper]

Guys...
Its just that when I got my SRV and played it all was well. My lil' digits were fine. After playing the Gibson my fingers looked like pencil lead!
Id forgot about the nitrocellulose finish too...its very fussy, you have to baby it.

[ChrisK]

Gib$on stains/colo(u)rs their ebony (and possibly rosewood) fretboards.

/


Either that, just plain dirt/dust from manufacturing, or it was built by a guy with grey digits..............

[the_uprising]

Well now that you say pencil lead, i'm confused. Or else it makes more sence... I'm not sure which. The whole post i was imagining gray fingers. The color of the clouds gray. But if they are making your fingers black like lead or graphite, than that would be a bit more understandable.

If what i am thinking now is correct, than the finger coloring sounds fairly normal. That always seemed like a combination of oil on the fretboard having some kind of effect on the composition of the strings or vice versa while the oil in your fingers (or perhaps lack thereof) interacts with your guitar.

You might try to treat the fret board like wolf and andy were talking about and get new strings. And more than that try to always give the strings a quick wipe down after every time you play so the strings stay clean and crisp. A wipe down should extend the life of your strings even if its just for a little bit.

And while wolf and andy are on the subject, it sounds like alot of oil you guys are applying. Andy particularly. I've never used much more than a good dab or mineral oil. Of course i have never tried saturating a fingerboard, so i may not know what i am missing... but it seems like too much would have adverse effects. Especially if you don't keep up on cleaning it up. Although it seems like you both are on top of it as far as clean up is concerned. As an after thought, i have also never used FastFret and i also don't know what it is made of.

But those are a few of my thoughts.

[andy]

True, I do use quite a lot, and yep, it may well be too much. I just keep wiping it til its dry to play with, and assume that its supposed to be that way- it certainly looks and feels good!

As for what is in FastFret, I am not sure- I don't remember any 'ingredients' on the tube! The story of that stuff for me is that I was told it 'made playing easier', and found a tube of it in a bag of old cables I was gifted with. Willing to give it a go, I smeared it up and down the strings and set to playing- and slid all over the place. Only later did a realise that one should wipe it back off again afterwards! In the meantime though, the bits of the fingerboard it had touched came up a treat, so I started to use it for that purpose instead. It seems to work like a super-strength hand cream- I used it to 'heal' an over dry fingerboard once, and while there was no magic, it certainly made it a lot more life-like, and I have just done the same thing with a new precision type bass I bought which was a bit dry under the fingers.

Anyhow, I'll have a look at the tube and if there is any useful info on there, I'll post it here.

[ux4484]

deep,

My Epi LP was the same way, I figured it was the "lesser" Epi build quality. It was terrible the first day or two when I was familiarizing myself with the guitar (too busy to change the strings ;D ). It didn't seem to lessen any after two days... So on the string change I cleaned the neck with GHS Fast Fret, they type I use is in a dabber (tightly wound fabric imbued with mineral oil) that you wipe off afterwards (in a little kit, I don't use their rag though, just an old cotton T shirt). As I was wiping it, I noticed the excessive amount of dye/stain that was built up along the edge of the frets (both sides). It took an excessive amount of wiping to get it all off afterwards (and a few re-applications). It trashed my cleaning T shirt, and I had to buff off the end of my fast fret dabber to get the black off (so it wouldn't get on my other guitars). I've never had this on ANY of my other rosewood neck guitars when they were new, even the Yamaha (Which is the darkest of any of them) that is in my room on the stand almost every day and is subject to the most dust never comes away that dirty.
I figured it would get better as time went on, and it has. But even RIGHT after the cleaning my fingers were still pretty dark after playing (though now it takes longer for them to get that way). My real problem was not so much that it was happening, but the hard time I was having getting it off my fingers!
After the cleaning and my fingers were still getting stained, I used a paper towel dipped in mineral spirits (which took it right off, but that's impractical on a daily basis). Now that the Epi barely stains my left hand, a baby wipe gets any of the crud off nicely. I've also noticed (with more play) that the neck on the Epi is starting to get that polished satiny look that most of my rosewood necks have, as opposed to the dull jet reddish-black look it had when I got it home.

[wolf]

My most recent incident with this guitar phenomenon was with a recently purchased Dean Vendetta XM. Since it goes for $100 new and is made in China, you would expect the workmanship to be first rate. ;D Well, okay, for that money I'm glad they spent what they could on making the neck, body and pickups quite good.
The fretboard was a mess (possibly the worst I've ever seen). Luckily, it cleaned off rather easily. It's surprising that Gibson manufactures guitars that also have messy fretboards since their guitars cost more than $100.00

[the_uprising]

I now remember when my old Harmony H-50 would get my fingers their blackest. Rest can bring back some good memories...

Thinking about it now, perhaps cleaning the frets would help... just doing the last few steps of re-crowning might do the trick. To my recollection the old girl doesn't do me wrong any longer by way of stains, now that i cleaned the frets off.

In the same token though, when i did that i also was cleaning the fretboard at the same time and i also changed the strings. So it could be any number of combinations that could help remedy this darkest of finger conditions...

[sumgai]

I always knew there was a good reason to buy one-piece maple necks! ;D

[D2o]

Deep,

I bought a set of Fender “Original 150s” and guess what? Gray, like I’ve never seen before … weird.