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Burnishing Raw Necks

DMRACO said:
I worked for about two hours.  It turned out really well.  I will post some photos.  it is hard to capture this on photos.  but the back is like glass.

While a sanded, I rolled the paper around the fretboard to hit the fret ends.  Another added benefit is perfectly polished fret ends!!

My wife was laughing at the the whole time.  The motions I was using were amusing to say the least.... :laughing8:

This is my 1st raw neck and and I do not know if I will ever go back.
Click to expand...

2 hours! Seriously?  :o I picked up my tele just the other day because I had noticed a spot I had missed since I tried Mr. Cagey's technique (which still worked out great the first time despite missing the spot). To tell you the truth I think I missed the spot because I was originally trying to hold a barre chord shape. Well, I had been mulling over the spot since then, really trying to resist going back over it and "fixing" it because I figured Id just mess it up even worse.

In the last couple of months, as practice with the tele became less and less, I just focused on the spot and...whats the word...scraped? glossed? sanded? more like dusted the neck again with attention to that spot, long strokes too, and extra TLC to the top part of the neck around the 15th 16th fret. 2 pieces of sand paper, very fine greyish blue then army green.

10 minutes:  :icon_thumright:

Thank you again Mr. Cagey!  :headbang:
 
You don't need to thank me as much as Tonar and Updown. I would have never even tried it had they not brought it up and demonstrated its efficacy. All I did was write it up. In fact, if somebody had just told me about it, I might have discounted the whole idea as exaggeration. I mean, how smooth can wood get?

Surprisingly smooth, as it turns out.  And the greatest part of all is it stays that way! It's not like a satin finish that turns to gloss fairly quickly, or a gloss finish that's forever sticky. Plus, it not only feels like the finest satin you've ever touched, it's super-fast. Done properly, you have to be careful picking your guitar up by the neck as it'll want to slide out of your hands.
 
Cagey said:
You don't need to thank me as much as Tonar and Updown. I would have never even tried it had they not brought it up and demonstrated its efficacy. All I did was write it up. In fact, if somebody had just told me about it, I might have discounted the whole idea as exaggeration. I mean, how smooth can wood get?

Surprisingly smooth, as it turns out.  And the greatest part of all is it stays that way! It's not like a satin finish that turns to gloss fairly quickly, or a gloss finish that's forever sticky. Plus, it not only feels like the finest satin you've ever touched, it's super-fast. Done properly, you have to be careful picking your guitar up by the neck as it'll want to slide out of your hands.
Click to expand...

Cagey, Brother, it was a stoned groove mah man, a GAME CHANGER! I think its about time I dusted off my Warmoth strat and gave her some very fine treatment.

I remember Up Down snatching up a sweet firebird body that could have taken my fully scalloped E neck (scalloped, nice!) in a different direction ("Powder Keg" can they do 'f' holes on a firebird?) but MN_JDTele saved the day with the faded blue jean VIP semi hollow.

I myself am partial to cannabis, but since cannabis is not legal for recreational purposes in all 50 states, you'll just have to accept this virtual cigar from me as a token (*cough*  :doh:) of my appreciation.

That's my new buddy Ron on Keys and yours truly singing along to a backing track (w/my "Sawtooth Lute") I still want to get "Powder Keg" in the future, maybe to match/contrast "Sawtooth Lute" like fire/water.

[youtube]UTaiQzgKMAI[/youtube]

And again, thanks to Stratamania for learning me how teach you to embed videos from www.youtube.com (by clicking on the youtube button in the message and then copying the link and pasting everything after the '=' sign).

Hope you enjoy!
:blob7:
 
I spent a little over an hour sanding/polishing my wenge neck this afternoon, and the results are pretty shocking. It's smooth and glasslike over most of the surface of the neck, but there are a few tiny rough spots. Is it unrealistic to expect to eliminate all of the pores in this wood?

Also, should I use any kind of oil or polish, or should I just let the natural skin oils in my hands take care of that?
 
I suspect if you tried to eliminate all the pores in a piece of Wenge, there would be less than a toothpick's worth of wood left. It's a very open-grained wood.

If you have a rough spot, it's more likely that as you moved through the increasingly finer grades of sandpaper, you just missed those spots. The super-fine grits won't do much if the surface you're polishing isn't already pretty polished. Each progressive grit removes less and less material for a given amount of effort. Miss an area at a lower grit, and the next finer grit isn't going to do as much in that area.

On the plus side, it's easy to take care of. None of the grits used on the process are very coarse, so there's very little material removed. In other words, you don't have to worry about changing your profile. Also, there's no finish to worry about. So, you can go back a grit or two in a particular area, and move forward from there and have the whole thing be uniform.

As for adding oil or anything to it? No. Leave it alone. Won't do any good and may do some harm.
 
Awesome, thanks for the advice. I'll keep working over the rough spots over the next few weeks. I've got plenty of time before the body is done with finish. Probably another 5-6 weeks to go.
 


Factory finish (no sanding) since "birth" in 2005.



Going to town on that thumb hanger on the top of the bottom part of the neck, near the pocket (for easier access  :sign13: to the higher frets) with 60 grit.


Going back over her with very fine treatment.

While my amateur sandpaper job is nowhere near professional quality control, the results in feel are just staggering!  :icon_thumright: And since taking these pictures, I have since picked up this strat here and there with the finer polishing paper and even THEN I've noticed a difference! And then I picked her up again with the finest polishing paper another separate time and STILL noticed a difference...I mean...u could be here all day...

My question is how F A T can Warmoth make their necks?

It may sound odd to manufacture a neck with a back contour the diameter of the fat part of a baseball bat, but personally I think it would be fun to sand/polish a neck for several months for that perfect fit. And who knows, with our hands and fingers getting bigger every year, maybe a fat enough neck will cease the need to bend our thumbs backwards if we want to play those blasted barre chords.

I also noticed  :sign13: that how you hold your neck can also affect the sanding/polishing. Sitting down for instance vs. standing up, and then again probably much different if the neck is not attached to the body of a playable guitar.
 
Take it ALL THE WAY home baby.  The friggin' PINK 3 Micron 3M Polishing Paper 4000 grit, y0h.

3m_paper_3_mic_t.bmp


Hells yeah.  :headbang:
 


Before the Pink 4000 grit, but after a little bit of skin friction (light practicing).
:guitaristgif:
 
Maybe I missed it, but I don't see any goncalo results here. Anyone tried it yet? I suspect awesomeness, but I thought I'd ask before diving in on mine.
 
I did one not too long ago. Might've been MusicIsPeace's Strat. I don't remember. Came out quite good, though, I remember that. You won't be sorry you took the time to do it.
 
I see ya missed a bit  :laughing7:  send it to me and i'll fix it up & toss it one of mine.  :icon_thumright:


Was gunna answer this v
Perry Combover said:
Maybe I missed it, but I don't see any goncalo results here. Anyone tried it yet?
I suspect awesomeness, but I thought I'd ask before diving in on mine.
Click to expand...

But thought i'd let ya find out for yourself.    :icon_biggrin:
Looks good to me.
 
Perry I got a Goncalo Alves neck that's been finished.

It's real special to me which is why I have resisted, but the results are undeniable.

I'm gonna try to put together an amateur video together sometime before the end of the year.s.so....hang in there  :icon_thumright:  :icon_jokercolor:
 
...sorry if its covered allready in this thread (i've only once read through it all, and it was a while ago), but my question is:

If the neck has binding, how do you handle it? sand/burnish the binding too, or carefully avoid the binding?

...question caused by my next-next(-next?) project, including a mahogany neck with binding.
 
I've done a couple/few with binding now, and I just pretend it isn't there. No special handling needed. The papers are too fine to remove much more than a film.
 
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