Guitar necks

If the strings are 80% of the feel of a guitar, then the neck, or more specifically, the finish of the neck is 80% of what's left. Whatever it is, after getting new strings, it's the next most obvious way to change the feel of a guitar. To keep a great feel on all my guitars, I'm obsessive about washing my hands before I play, and about wiping down my guitar after I play. Both are easy habits that make it feel better. And when it feels better, it's more fun, and easier to be creative.

Modern factory wood techniques mean that we can now get nearly perfect polyurethane finishes that are strong and stand up to minor bumps, and can be easily cleaned of any smudges, or oil, or dirt, or even grimy build-up. And they protect the wood from moisture or abrupt humidity changes. We get to enjoy our guitars for years.

The problem is that "poly" can go too far. It can get almost mirror-like. And when that happens, it gets sticky. Not sticky, like sticky fingers after eating cotton candy, but stickly like a mirror. Rub your fingers down a piece of glass, or a mirror. If there's any moisture on you skin at all (mostly oil), the surface tension of the oil interacts with the extremely flat glass, and your finger actually sticks a little. Do the same thing with the wall in your house, or on bare wood.

So if it's rough, it's bumpy, and your fingers don't slide over it very well, but if it gets too smooth, you have to worry about surface tension, and it starts to get sticky again.

Poly goes too far, and gets too close to being mirror-like when one of two things happens: 1) it's a hi-gloss poly finish from the factory; 2) the low-sheen finish from the factory gets buffed back up to a hi-sheen finish with lots of use, and lots of cleaning when you (I) wipe down the guitar.

The solution is to rough up the neck a little with fine steel wool, to take the luster off. For me it was getting to be a regular chore that would sneak up on me. I'd forget and then spend a month or two playing a guitar with a sticky neck.  So instead, I've now decided to sand the necks down to raw wood. The raw wood can't get mirror-like, but the wood is typically dense enough that you can get a nice sheen on the neck with sanding alone.

I haven't done it yet, but next I'll rub in some gunstock oil, which is linseed oil and some stabilizers to get a little hardness and finish, but mostly to protect the raw wood.

Here are pictures of two necks I'm working on. The first is from 2-year-old American Elite Telecaster, and the second is from a 10-year-old Taylor 814CE acoustic.

The Tele neck is a beautiful clear maple, that's obviously very hard and heavy.

Tele neck, maple

You can see the original finish that's a little more yellow at the top left, around the tuning pegs, and the raw exposed maple of the neck. It feels amazing: soft, smooth and fast.

It's hard to get in a picture, but with direct sun, there's a nice sheen on the wood alone.

Sheen from raw maple

To strip the existing finish, I started with 80 grit sandpaper, and then 100, 150, 220, 320, 600 and then finally steel wool. It's a lot of effort, but only takes about an hour or two.

The Tele neck bolts on to the body, so it's easy to take off and work on it alone. The Taylor neck is glued to the body, so I have to work on that attached. Here you can see the darker mahogany neck compared to the maple.

Exposed mahogany and maple necks

There's a slight difference in the feel of the necks because of the types of wood, but both feel perfect to me. Also, while it's not nearly as mirror-like as a hi-gloss factory finish, at the right angle to the light, there's still a fair amount of sheen from the raw wood alone.

Not a mirror like the back of the guitar, but still sheen from raw wood

And to get some feel for the different wood grains, here's a close up of both together.

Mahogany and maple

Now I realize that I should do these as a video. I'll post something else after I do the oil finish.