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Burnishing Raw Necks

I'm gradually going through my collection doing this. Last one was the Ebony/Bloodwood neck on my VIP. The results are fantastic!
 
Question - do you polish the fretboard as well or just the back?  If you do the fretboard what about the inlays?  How about the side dots (mop in this case)?  Do you have to try to avoid them?
 
You can't really do the fretboard because of the frets. You'd end up with dull spots immediately adjacent to the frets. You can't really sand against the grain, so there's no way to get up close to them. Everything else gets it, though. The papers are all pretty fine, so bindings and dot inlays are not only unhurt, they're improved.
 
Yep +1 what Cagey said  :icon_thumright:

Also ...
For anyone NOT sure about doing this, Just try it on the back of the headstock or heel to feel the difference.

The 1st one I did.
I tested on the back of a headstock and the heel, then could feel the difference by running fingers down the lot.

My Bocote had a furry / fluffy feel to it when it arrived, sanded to factory 220 ...... Not anymore.  :icon_biggrin:
 
Be aware that it takes some time. I wasn't kidding early on in the thread where I said you need an awful movie to watch. Tonar taught me that. Maybe not a bad movie that doesn't require a great deal of attention but somehow you need a half-assed reason to sit in one place for about an hour and a half or so while you do this. It's a slow process that doesn't show results immediately. Besides a pile of progressively finer papers, you need time and patience. But it pays. Big time.
 
I did this recently with a goncalo alves neck and I was surprised that it didn't take very long.  Probably because GA is pretty damn smooth to begin with.  I did go through a lot of sand paper though.  It loaded up pretty quickly.
 
If you're using wet/dry stuff from Gator or 3M, you can just wash it clean. Maybe an old toothbrush, or your roommate's or something. And/or a chunky rectangular elementary pencil eraser will blast it off.
It may sound miserly, but it's just those kinds of miserly that makes for nifty music-porpoises!  :hello2: :toothy10: :toothy12: :toothy10: :hello2:

Rags instead of paper towels,  you can cut just about any soap in the house by 4, 5 parts water to soap - oh yes, the people who sell you stuff want you wasteful...

gahhh... gahhh... gahgahhh... gahh...
 
I didn't find it that bad other than having to split it up into 3 sessions because of my medical issues.  Spent about an hour and a half actual time sanding and oh baby is it smooth now!!!!!!  Dropped everything off at my luthier and he estimated I'll have my guitar on the 8th of June (which probably means the end of June) - can't wait to actually PLAY this neck!  I'm just afraid it's going to ruin my other necks I'm going to love it so much.
 
Cagey said:
No pads. I used 3M Flexible Polishing Papers for most of it, although the 2000 grit was Eagle Abrasives P2000 "KOVAX" waterproof paper - no water.

3M_Flexible_Polishing_Papers_sm.jpg

The flexible polishing papers are more like cloth than paper.
Click to expand...

I'd like to try my hand at it but I'm not sure how to proceed, as I don't know if the grits of these flexible polishing papers are the same as standard sandpaper. Let's say I have a neck already sanded to 400 with standard sandpaper, can I just start with the green polishing paper, then the grey, etc. or is there something else to do before using them?
 
croquet hoop said:
I'd like to try my hand at it but I'm not sure how to proceed, as I don't know if the grits of these flexible polishing papers are the same as standard sandpaper. Let's say I have a neck already sanded to 400 with standard sandpaper, can I just start with the green polishing paper, then the grey, etc. or is there something else to do before using them?
Click to expand...

For reference, those polishing papers progress like this:

Green = 400
Gray = 600
Blue = 1200
Pink = 4000
Aqua = 6000
White = 8000

Of those, I only used the first three, then went to a wet or dry 2000 grit. The rest are too fine for wood; I use them for polishing frets.
 
No. 1 sheet each is enough. You're not looking to shape anything or remove much wood. You're just levelling an already fairly level surface. You'll barely generate any sawdust at all, really.
 
Great, thank you!

If I don't have wet 2000 grit, how will the 4000 from the flexible set work? I already bought these a month ago on your advice.  :laughing7:
 
The 4000 is probably too fine to do you much good. The 2000 is as far as you can practically go. And there, you have to keep at it. You won't notice much change at first - it's almost like a buffing operation. Takes time.

You should be able to get 2000 grit at a decent automotive supply or a full-service finishing supply store. The average hardware or home supply store won't carry it as there's little call for papers that fine around the typical house.
 
Thanks for the grit progression tip. And this chart is really useful too, I'm sometimes afraid of messing things up by mixing two different grit systems.
 
I got fairly adept with these guys during my regrinding-fountain-pen-nibs for fun and profit days*, that 12,000 "grit" is, like, what the Air Force uses to finish airplane windows! (that's just one of the things they don't tell you about in the TV ads - you think that generals and admirals polish their OWN windshields?) :laughing3:

So, even in grinding stainless steel and iridium -> even harder weird elements, you can skip a grit or two. Perfection is wonderful (bless my lucky stars!) but you reach a real point of diminishing returns. I mean, YOU know you can trim your nose hair in the reflection off your guitar neck, but who else are you going to test that on....

*(Just no FUN anymore, with these 15-year-older eyes. :sad1: If you take your finest .003" drafting pencil, make a line - now imagine what you would have to do to a pen to make a line half that size...)



And I'll throw in the cheapskate shop tip 'o' the day here: "Worn-out" sandpaper, especially of the aluminum oxide (light brown) woody paper, is actually not worn-out - it's just morphed to a finer grit. So if you're deep into yer sanding-zen-exercise mode, and you don't want to blow it with a trip to the hardware store, you could go, like, 50 -> 80 ->150 ->320-> 400 instead of 60-> 100-> 220 ->600 etc. and you'll get to the same place eventually.

The two biggest horrors not often mentioned are:

Getting gray silicon shrapnel into some over-sanded raw wood or, even dumber - getting anything at all into still-soft lacquer, be it nitro, acrylic, Tru-Oil or whatever. The gray stuff is "metal" sanding but it's also used in wet-sanding a finish... if you have wood with blotches of raw wood, umm, back up. Way back.

And the other is just understanding why you want a flat block to sand with, why a piece of mousepad glued to a paddle is useful, why a piece of mousepad is useful in your hand, why just a finger + paper is best for squirrelly curves = here be dragons. Over-enthusiastic dragons...
 
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