Seven years later, CV neck is clean

That guitar looks great.
Probably means you take care of your gear. I like that.
Peace - Deeve

 

My favorite too !

 

Stop washing your hands before playing. Don’t clean the guitar. Come up to the Lubbock area and let some fine grit settle in on the oils that you leave on there from your dirty hands. Keep playing and neglecting the guitar this way, and it will ‘age’ some. If you keep babying it, it will look new for a long time!!!!!! (;^)

 

That guitar is in amazing shape.
When those were first introduced, each one that I picked up in a store had chipped finishes. Yours must be made of hardier stock and you obviously take care of your gear. Kudos.

 

Those finishes are so tough. The EPA won't let us use them in the USA (which is good for our lungs) but the lungs of the workers over there, hmm.

But the "care factor" is there too, on your Classic Vibe, and I like that. I don't mind a gently and ever so slowly rusticated guitar, but there's Shoplifters and Lane Cutters in the Relicking Process. Kinda like people who exit a helicopter just 1,000 feet from the Mountaintop, or Rosie Ruiz. IMO better to do your best to slow the wear down while playing as much as you can. As you have....nice.

 

How are the frets holding up after 7 years?

 

If it’s a poly finish rather than nitro, it will take about 70 years.

 

Well, no doubt there are a variety of variables that come in to play here. (See what I did there?) Obviously the cumulative effect of years of play is a key variable. Add to that the environment in which the guitar lives and the player's body chemistry, these are also important factors.

An illustration from my own experience. I actually have four teles, but the one that best illustrates my point and fits this discussion is the second one I acquired, back in the spring of 2009. It is my Honey Blonde Logan Custom "Logo" thinline (second from left in the first pic below)...

Vox Pathfinder 15Rs & Logan Custom Teles by LGOberean posted May 13, 2015 at 10:56 AM

Logan Custom "logo" Alder Thinline by LGOberean posted Apr 9, 2009 at 7:21 AM

For a couple of years, I gigged with it a lot. But my next acquisition, my Logan Custom BSB, became my go-to gigging tele, so for the last 7 years my "Logo" thinline has hardly left the house, and gets played maybe twice a week. So, not my number one, but about the same number of years as your CV. Here is a pic I took of the neck of my "Logo" thinline back in November...

11-25-2017 - Logan 'Logo' Thinline 2 by LGOberean posted Nov 25, 2017 at 9:55 AM

I don't wipe off the strings after every play, and I've done nothing to actually clean the fretboard in the 9 years that I've owned it. Bob Logan uses nitrocellulose lacquer on his guitars. I live in a coastal town (Corpus Christi, TX), and three blocks from the Corpus Christi Bay, so that's the environment it lives in (albeit indoors most of the time). And I have a very acidic complexion. I could probably corrode a bank vault door just by leaning against it.

So those are the variables to factor into the amount of dirt and wear on the fretboard. This is what "proper played and aged" looks like on my thinline. And FWIW, JMHO, YMMV and all that, but in my experience, natural aging doesn't look anything like most examples or artificial aging I've seen (I followed your lead and didn't use the "R" word).

 

I guess I took it for granted, that you had a light touch.

Players with a heavier than average hand, probably shouldn't go for a CV. Their wire has a tendency to be softer than wire on the average North American guitar.

 

I’m sure part of the fretboard wear you see on older guitars can be blamed on tiny vintage frets. If you’re not hitting the wood/finish when you fret a note, you’re only going to wear the frets, right?

 

Worth pointing out that different people have a different PH in their perspiration and on the surface of their skin. Some people will corrode strings really fast. Others last for months

 

+1 !!!!!!

 

I got one about 2009ish. It needed a refret last year due to the frets all worn down. It's not my number one, but it's my only tele so it gets played a lot. I chose to replace the neck as it was essentially the same price. I don't just play cowboy chords so at least 17 of the frets needed to be replaced. Other than that, the guitar is in good shape--a few chips and dings, but nothing that looks like a 50s or 60s tele. Poly don't age that way.

 

I don’t understand all of this affectation with how a guitar wears? Modern guitars aren’t going to wear anything like the vintage ones did!

 

One of the pickups has fallen off, pretty serious wear if you ask me.

 

Cool!
Obviously, you take care of your guitar, wash your hands, and clean your fingerboard, when necessary.
You must be a grown up.
Bravo!