- 100% natural essential oil for your fingerboards
- Suitable for rosewood, ebony and pau ferro boards (unfinished)
- Smells extremely nice
- Provides superb conditioning of the fingerboards
- It may look like it's gone off while not used
- Significant precipitation happens (must shake well before use)
Hello there, back again with another real review of a really nice instrument care product by Sandberg. This time, we will be looking at one of the best guitar and bass fingerboard/fretboard care oils out there: Sandberg Fingerboard Oil. My regular readers are already aware of me being a total nerd in fingerboard oils! Around 7-8 years ago, I was trying to make my own, all-natural fretboard oil with essential oils extracted from lemon, orange, oregano, mint and grape seeds. Since I used to have access to an essential oil manufacturer, I was able to get some samples, mix them and create all-natural oils.
Table of Contents
In my very old article on “How to Care Guitar Fretboard? Natural or Synthetic Lemon Oil“, I presented some results of my attempts in this context.
Yes, you can actually mix some essential oils and maintain, care and clean your guitar/bass fingerboards without having to pay for petroleum-based oil with added synthetic scents! 
This article was also written just to prove that the “lemon oil“, as you know, is not really lemon extract at all. Most of the big companies use petroleum-based oils and add artificial components to them. As far as I know, there was only a single particular product by the MusicNomad company, named F-One Oil.
Check out my Music Nomad Fretboard F-One Oil review here
While I was experimenting with different essential oils and comparing them with an off-the-shelf product, I noticed there were similarities in characteristics. The smell was very similar; both products felt more like a proper “oil” rather than a more fluid, baby-oil-like structure. Since I relocated to Bratislava for work, I had to sell all my guitars to finance myself, so naturally, I didn’t take my guitar maintenance products with me. 🙂 
But recently, I have started buying guitars and related accessories to get back to playing again! One of my recent guitar choices was a Schecter Hellraiser Hybrid PT-7, which features a beautiful ebony fretboard. So, in order to do the maintenance of ebony, I started looking for a fingerboard oil. 
Unfortunately, Thomann would only feature a couple of MusicNomad products, mostly drums and cymbal cleaners. So I thought I should go for a standard cleaning agent temporarily. However, while I was searching for the guitar cleaning and maintenance agents category, I noticed Sandberg Fingerboard Oil!
Sandberg Fingerboard Oil
And voila! It’s exactly what I was looking for! The smell is so nice, it hits you right after you open the lid. I noticed a strong scent of orange, lemon or citrus family peel extract. It has only a single warning in German on the back, saying that keep away from children and in case of contact with the eyes, wash with water 🙂
In order to prove my point that Sandberg Fretboard Oil is 100% natural & essential oil, I have also contacted the Sandberg company. I will also share their input here if I ever get a response. So stay tuned!
Update: Unfortunately, they never replied 🙁
By the way, Sandberg not only manufactures cleaning and maintenance products for guitars. They are actually a guitar and bass manufacturer. And most of their instruments are highly segmented in terms of quality and price. 
Sandberg Fretboard Oil comes in a 50ml plastic bottle with an additional inner lid that will help you keep things clean and use it in single drops.
It’s a very minor detail, but this will keep the bottle clean at all times, even though you chuck it away somewhere in a toolbox. You can use this oil on ebony, rosewood or pau ferro without any issue.
I highly recommend it to anyone picky about what they put on their guitar/bass fingerboards. Before I end this post, I would like to share an image of Sandberg‘s fretboard oil in use. Wish I were able to transmit the scent of it as well 🙂
Once it’s settled down on the guitar fretboard, especially on darker ebony and rosewood boards, it really influences how these fingerboard materials look and feel. As some users reported, Sandberg Fingerboard oil may look like it’s off. After not using this for a long time, you may notice precipitation, but once you shake the bottle well, it comes back to almost the original state. The colour has definitely darkened, though, throughout the years. 
Pricing & Availability
As you may guess, I got mine from Thomann back in 2020. It used to be priced at €6.70, and it’s currently at €8.90! This is around 30% increase in the last 5-6 years. Since the price is not that high, you won’t feel this increase. But just so you know. Once you buy this, you will be using it for the next decade without any issues. Especially if you only apply it a couple of times per year on a couple of guitars.
Check out Sandberg Fingerboard Oil on Thomann here
Also, don’t forget to check out Reverb.com. There are some alternative resellers, usually from Germany, listing Sandberg products, as well as accessories and maintenance products.
Check out Sandberg Fingerboard Oil on Reverb here
I hope you have enjoyed this brief article and hopefully helped you recognise this excellent guitar/bass brand as well! Thanks for visiting my blog and supporting me so far! I will hopefully see you in the next review here!
