vintage finish to orange any solutions?

[kg4001]

OMG this is the third attempt at posting on this forum so please forgive me if this is a repeat but I do not see where this posted if at all?

After waiting for what seemed like forever I received my warmoth strat neck and was totally crushed to see how yellow/orange the finish was. I was expecting an amber/brown/actual wood color.

The neck itself is beautiful, it's just the finish I am disappointed with and would like to know if there is a way I can get rid of the horrible fake spray tan look.

I work at a guitar shop and know I could sell the neck easily and start over but i do not what the pale maple color and don't know if I should just keep the vintage tint and try to fix it or hope it calms down or to get an unfinished version and try and do it myself?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[Cagey]

The vintage tint they use is polyurethane, and that stuff is no fun to get off. You need a stripper that's based on methylene chloride, which isn't as easy to find as it used to be. Pretty caustic stuff. If you live in California, it might even cause cancer, but you'd have to drink about 30 gallons of the stuff per day for 4 weeks straight to reproduce their results.

You're not the first to complain about the tint being a tad too much. Personally, I've got two necks with that finish on them and it worked out well for me.

If you just got the thing, it's possible they'll take it back. Otherwise, your best bet is to sell it if you can't stand it. Just be prepared to lose your ass on it. Nobody is going to give you retail for it.

 

[croquet hoop]

The vintage tint they use is polyurethane

Don't they offer the vintage tint both in poly (gloss) and nitro (satin)?

I think Tonar showed how to strip the poly finish on a neck somewhere on the forum, and nitro should be easy enouh to remove with acetone and a rag. I am not sure how practical it would be on a maple fingerboard though (I've been warned that acetone may eat into the inlays, perhaps the chemical stripper too).

But that would mean removing a pro finish that cost you $70+ in the first place and replacing it with whatever you are able to do, so if you lack experience I would side with Cagey, try to return it (doesn't Warmoth have a 1-month satisfaction guarantee?) or resell it to recoup most of the price. Unless there's a reason to cling on to this particular piece of wood (beautiful grain/figure).

 

[kg4001]

I probably should have mentioned some detail. I got the maple neck, ebony fretboard with satin nitro finish.

The more I think about it the more I am leaning towards just selling the neck and going with a rosewood or walnut neck clear satin nitro finish with the ebony fretboard. I think either of those woods will give me the look I am going for but now I wonder about which wood to go with!

Why is maple the neck of choice? Is it just cost or does it actually play better? Both rosewood and walnut are hard woods and should hold up just as well right?

Thanks

 

[croquet hoop]

Maple is the neck of choice because it is abundant, hard and cheap, exactly what Leo needed. There are many perfectly acceptable alternatives, as shown by the large choice Warmoth offers.

If there is nitro on your neck, it should be quite easy to remove and apply the finish you want. However, if you are able to resell it without losing too much money and want another neck, then you have lots of possibilities. Rosewood and walnut are good choices (and while walnut needs a finish, rosewood does not, which is a good thing). Pau ferro is an excellent choice for the neck as well, and pau ferro + ebony is said to be an excellent combination (I have never played one myself, but you can see what people here say about it).

Flicking through the Neck Woods section of the forum will give you some ideas if you are not sure of what you want yet.

 

[Cagey]

Ebony over Pau Ferro is sex on a stick. Absolutely glorious combination. Put some stainless frets on there, and it's the best neck you'll ever put your hand around. The only thing that comes close is Ebony over Bloodwood, but Bloodwood is pretty red so it only works with certain body colors. Walnut and Rosewood are attractive, but they're somewhat more absorbent of high frequencies so they sound a tad darker. Personally, I'd rather filter high frequencies out with the tone control on the guitar or amp than not be able to create them in the first place.

If you want to go lighter in color, Canary is a good choice to replace Maple.

None of those woods requires a finish, so even though they cost a bit more, you save on the finish so it sorta balances out.