Neck Lacquer

[twitchylizard]

Just got my guitar finished. No complaints. One question though. My neck is clear gloss, and the frets are peeling. Do they put the frets on then lacquer the neck? Is this standard procedure with every company? I spent a while trying to get all the lacquer on the frets to peel off and I think I've got most of it.

 

[bagman67]

Howdy, twitchylizard, and welcome.


What you are experiencing is normal and expeted.  For maple fingerboards, yes, they do spray the whole board without masking off the frets.  THey leave the cleanup to the end user.  Since Warmoth does not dress the frets, this would tend to be accomplished during the setup of the guitar you are attaching the new neck to. 

 

[Cagey]

As Bagman says, it's normal and expected with Maple necks, regardless of source. There just isn't a better way to do it unless the manufacturer does neck setup before shipping, which is sadly more rare than it should be for what a lot of them charge.

But, lacquer and poly both chip off the frets pretty easily as neither sticks to metal very well without help. Get yourself a pack of utility blades and a generous mittenful of patience and you can clean 'em up well enough to play, which will finish them off. 

Or, you could send the neck off to somebody who will level, crown, dress and polish the frets for you. Then you don't have to worry about it all. Maybe even get some threaded inserts installed. Hmmm... who could that be?

 

[twitchylizard]

Thank you, I think I got most of it off. I just wanted to know if it was a normal procedure. I figured it was. When I first played it I wondered why the frets felt like sandpaper. Then I saw the flakes coming off. Thanks for the information.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

I recently had a neck refinished - the frets were already dressed, so all that was needed was to remove the finish. I did it by masking the fingerboard and then just polishing the frets with some fine steel wool. They came up great.

 

[twitchylizard]

i thought about doing that but it seemed like a lot of work and i dont have masking tape. so i just played a bunch of nonsense vibratos on every fret and it came right off.