Thanks guys! Yeah totally my fav at the moment

But I have updates!

So if you were hoping I'd take the advice to not mess with it at all, then you better stop reading......

So whilst the neck shape is totally satisfy to play, what's left of the finish made it feel like playing a blunt cheese-grater. Complete with little chips of nitro falling off in my hand. I suppose I could have tried to remedy this in some less destructive fashion, but I do love the (call me a hippy, but) organic feel of a near naked neck, and the end result is going to feel so incredibly nice.

Tada! Blatant Guitar Nudity!


nude neck by Ch0jiN, on Flickr

I'm not done yet as it needs another coat before I can buff it, but you get the idea

So as you can see from the earlier pics a lot of the finish on the back of the neck was gone. All it took to remove the rest, was dragging a sharp knife across it to flake it off on the bench. I left the base of the headstock area relatively untouched, only lightly sanding the edges of the finish to smooth the transition. Same deal where the neck joins the body. I didn't want to mess with it past what was required to make it play well.

So finish removed, I gave it a very light sand, the bare sections were very smooth already from years of playing, but I needed the wood to suck up some juicy Tung goodness. As you can see, I left all her bruises in tact. I was going to fill the dings, but then decided this wan't cosmetic surgery, and a couple of little dents in the back of a 50 year old neck is part of the appeal.

I went with what Mudcat mentioned earlier to seal up the naked wood, and rubbed in a coat of fine buffing oil (tung oil plus carnuba wax and beeswax) Based on how it feels now (very good) I'll give it a rub down with steel wool and one more coat followed by a buff and it'll be insanely smooth, organic, and a bit more stable from a moisture point of view. If it ends up feeling horrible, no bother, it comes off with turpentine.

Here's a shot showing how the oil really sexes up the wood. So it's not a completely fair comparison as the top of the neck was darker to start with, having been exposed for years, but compared to the the fresh sanded bottom, you can see how it brings out the grain and keeps the vintage yellowed look.


nude neck II by Ch0jiN, on Flickr

The best thing about this oil so far is that it seems impossible to mess up. I'm applying it with a scouring pad, you can just wipe off excess after 10 minutes, it's reversible, and it feels like BUTTAH when its dry. Anyway, time will tell and we'll see how it holds up after playing it a while. The next job will be trying out some replacement tuners. These are pretty, rare, and vintage correct. They are also sloppy, tricky to adjust, and fragile feeling. I'm not sure how much mojo comes from being out of tune, but I can always put the originals back in if I need to.

So anyway, gasp in horror at the vintage guitar butcher or dig on the serious playability vibe, I just hope you enjoy the story