Neck Staining??

[guitarhobbyist]

Hey all, well I had a thought. I was looking for a dark wood neck. It was basically just to have the look of it. Since Warmoth necks come unfinished, can one buy a maple neck and stain it dark then maybe some oil on it? I wanted to ask first before ordering and find out that it doesn't work the same as a body, with hand sweat and hand oils and such.

 

[jackthehack]

I experimented with that and maple will not absorb any form of stain either evenly nor well. On the other hand, it doesn't need grain filling at all, you can just shoot a couple of coats of sanding sealer on it, hit it with toner to darken to desired shade and then lacquer gloss finish on top of that.

 

[-CB-]

Short of chewing up about a half dozen packs of Redman, and keeping all the "extract" for use in staining the neck.....

The hard maple used, is just that:  Its hard!  You'd want to try a penetrating dye with a solvent base - I'd choose alcohol based metallic dye.  Keep in mind... its boud to be splotchy.  And keep in mind that W seals their necks in some sort of mystery razz-ma-tazz which makes things even tougher to dye.

Having said that - I dyed a nice mahogany neck, and it came out great (see Vic's Blue Flame Tele).  So maybe some other wood beside maple would do ya good.

 

[jackthehack]

Yep mahogany will cost you $20 more than the base maple neck and can be stained, OR you can spend $237 and get rosewood, pau ferro, wenge , etc and not even have to worry about a finish....

 

[-CB-]

INDEED!~

 

[guitarhobbyist]

Jack, I had just finished reading another post where you recommended a rosewood neck. I always associate the "hardness" of maple as contributing to help keeping the neck straight with all the tension that the string produce, as well as the truss rod. Is rosewood softer and more finicky in trying to keep the neck straight? Would more frequent adjustments be needed?

 

[jackthehack]

Not that I've experienced at all, wouldn't think so