show us your padouk neck

dbw

Master Member
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People who have padouk necks, please post a pic and say how old they are.  Then we can get an idea of how the color changes as they age.

Edit: Here's a new, fresh padouk neck from the showcase:

BN2020b.jpg
 
DocNrock said:
I ordered one, but I (sacrelig) had it satin coated to keep the red color.

scrape the lacquer of. the paint won't help. the UV-light can go 'through'  the lacquer, and make it brownish anyway. unless warmoth's puts a UV-filter in the paint, though I seriously doubt that...
 
I keep meaning to take pics of mine, although it's not as dark as it once was. See, when my friend originally built me my current #1 guitar from scratch, he insisted on putting 2 clear coats over the padouk neck. I fought him and fought him on it, but he insisted my hand would get stained red if it wasn't finished. Well, after 2 years (even with the finish) it got quite a bit darker... that is, until 3 weeks ago when I finally sanded off the finish!

I'll try to get some pics up... the headstock is still finished, so you should be able to see a contrast there.
 
Jan08009.jpg


That's after about a month. It's darker now, but it seems to me that it stopped darkening when I greased it up with some Howard's Feed 'n' Wax - a beeswax/orange oil mix that Elderly Instruments swears by. Here it is right now, after 14 months:

S6300123.jpg


That's mixed sun/shade, but it really hasn't gotten much darker for a while - it seems like it's gone from red towards brown, but that's hue, not saturation.... It doesn't get direct sun, and I'm not at all sweaty, in fact I get dry & cracky instead and have to deal with that more. I do turn pao ferro boards dark in a few years, but this padouk's stuck, I think.
 
Orpheo said:
DocNrock said:
I ordered one, but I (sacrelig) had it satin coated to keep the red color.

scrape the lacquer of. the paint won't help. the UV-light can go 'through'  the lacquer, and make it brownish anyway. unless warmoth's puts a UV-filter in the paint, though I seriously doubt that...

Actually, the browning is an oxidation process.  The poly used for the satin finish is impermeable to oxygen, a necessary component of oxidation.  Granted, there will be a small amount of oxygen in the wood, but once that reaches equilibrium with the oxidized product, no further oxidation will occur, regardless of UV exposure.  I doubt this will result in any significant color change over time. 
 
DocNrock said:
Orpheo said:
DocNrock said:
I ordered one, but I (sacrelig) had it satin coated to keep the red color.

scrape the lacquer of. the paint won't help. the UV-light can go 'through'  the lacquer, and make it brownish anyway. unless warmoth's puts a UV-filter in the paint, though I seriously doubt that...

Actually, the browning is an oxidation process.  The poly used for the satin finish is impermeable to oxygen, a necessary component of oxidation.  Granted, there will be a small amount of oxygen in the wood, but once that reaches equilibrium with the oxidized product, no further oxidation will occur, regardless of UV exposure.  I doubt this will result in any significant color change over time. 

I was told it had to do something with sunlight. A friend of mine experimented with padouk. one piece with finish in sunlight, one without in sunlight, one with finish without sun, and one without finish without sun. the versions with sun all had some discolorisation, the others in a much lesser degree.
 
I am quite curious to see where this goes, because i just ordered a Padouk neck, and i would like to keep it red.

I found this neck in a classified ad on TalkBass. Its an all Padouk neck, that is apparently VERY brown.

 
Just a chemistry note...  Oxidation is the giving up of electrons or the gaining of positive charge by a molecule/atom, Reduction is the reduction of positive charge or gaining of electrons by a molecule/atom.  Oxygen is not required, but it can be used in redox reactions.  Sunlight, more importantly UV light, is higher energy light which can give energy to the reaction to allow it to move forward over the required activation energy.  This could be for a redox reaction or the destruction/polymerization of molecules involved with the pigment or the wood.  Not to nitpick but Oxidation and Oxygen get commonly confused.  It is describing two very different things.
Patrick



 
i have friends who have worked with padouk, either amateur luthiers or cabinet  makers, and they told me that the wood will stay quite red even if you use oil as a finish. a buddy of mine made a great padouk table and used a urethane on top and it is still very red.
 
Nope. Looks exactly like Padouk to me. (I have both Padouk and Rosewood necks. They are very different.)
 
Patrick from Davis said:
Just a chemistry note...  Oxidation is the giving up of electrons or the gaining of positive charge by a molecule/atom, Reduction is the reduction of positive charge or gaining of electrons by a molecule/atom.  Oxygen is not required, but it can be used in redox reactions.  Sunlight, more importantly UV light, is higher energy light which can give energy to the reaction to allow it to move forward over the required activation energy.  This could be for a redox reaction or the destruction/polymerization of molecules involved with the pigment or the wood.  Not to nitpick but Oxidation and Oxygen get commonly confused.  It is describing two very different things.
Patrick

He took the bait.  Now we know who the nerds are!  Everybody get 'em! 

I joke, I joke.  Good stuff man.
 
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