Roasted Maple neck question--making it smooth

[spi]

Hi,
I was curious to try unfinished necks as lots of people seem to love it.  A few months ago I ordered a roasted maple neck from warmoth.  It's a great playing neck (if anyone cares, it's RW board, vintage modern, 1 5/8 nut, 59 round, 6105SS--really liking these specs).

Having spent a few months with it, I don't care much for the feel of raw wood, because there's a slight roughness to it.  To remove the roughness, I figure I can either try to sand it smoother, finish it, or do both.  Just curious what other people do.  Do you leave your roasted maple necks as-is or do you treat it?

 

[Fat Pete]

Welcome to the forum!

Check out this thread

 

[spi]

Wow that thread has lots of info, just what I was looking for.
Thanks!

 

[spi]

Update:  I finally got around to burnishing the neck.

I had a variety of fine grained sandpaper from a previous project, so just worked each on the back of the neck, starting with 400 and going up to 2000 grit (400,600,800,1000,1200,1500,2000).  I probably spent around the time of one song on each grit, so the whole thing took me under 30 minutes. 

I wasn't aiming for that shiny, glassy look like some of the folks in that thread, I just wanted it to feel smooth.

The results are great.  The neck feels nice now. 

 

[WindsurfMaui]

SPI welcome. I was going to warn you before you burnished the neck, like Laurence Fishburne said to Keanu Reeves in the first Matrix movie if you take the red pill you can never forget what you learn. Now that you have a burnished roasted maple neck it will be hard for you to play a finished neck in the future, especially now that you have stainless frets. Welcome to the club.  :>)