Old neck touch up

[dmraco]

I have come in possession of an older fender hybrid neck with a tele style heel and strat headstock.  The necks finish is worn but I am interested in spraying a light coat of satin nitro just to cover some bad spots. I also have to do some work on the headstock.

I have never had a maple fretboard before.  Do I just spray the entire neck then scrape the frets?  Or will the nitro wear off while playing.

Thanks.

 

[Cagey]

There's not really a convenient way to mask the frets without buying some pretty specialized tape, although it's out there. Look for 3M's 218 series stuff. You can get it narrow enough for frets. But, doing that is probably a bigger pain in the ass than you need to have.

If you wait until the lacquer is good and hard, it will peel off pretty easily with a razor, as it doesn't stick well to metal. Just buy a pack of single-sided safety razors and carefully shave the frets. It'll only take two or three frets for you to get the feel for it. It's important that the blade be very fresh and sharp, or you'll damage the frets. So, every 6 or 8 frets, grab a new blade. You don't have to toss the ones you've used, as they'll be good for other things, but if you gouge up your frets you'll make more work for yourself.

You can just play it off, but that's for neanderthals <grin>

 

[dmraco]

Thanks Cagey.  you confirmed my suspicions.