orangeaxis
Member
- Joined
- May 29, 2004
- Messages
- 5
Hi everyone.
I wanted to pass on my experience with finishing my unfinished neck.
Here's the story:
I have an orange axis (I'm sure that doesnt come as a big surprise). As with everyone else who has played a MM guitar, I instantly fell in love with the raw neck. I have a hard time playing on anything else.
So much so that I now want a raw neck on my other favorite guitar, a two color sunburst 54 strat reissue.
So I ordered a bitchin' birdseye maple neck raw from Warmoth (by the way, I cant say enough good things about those guys or the neck I got).
I did my homework on the FAQ and on these forums and learned about the Birchwood Casey Tru-oil and the Birchwood Casey Gunstock Wax, which MM uses on their necks.
I got the Tru-oil at Wal-mart, but they didnt have the wax (seems to be a common problem). I found the wax at a Sports Authority, though I imagine other sporting goods stores that carry firearms would also have it.
So here was my dilemma--the FAQ tells me how to maintain an axis neck, but I wasnt going to maintain one that was already treated, I was finishing it for the first time. So I just decided that I might have to use several coats. Hoping I wasnt about to screw up my $300 neck, I forged ahead...
As for the applicaiton of the oil, I found out that the MM factory dips the necks in the oil. I obviously didnt have that luxury. Here is what I did:
I took the neck by itself (not yet mounted on the guitar; as a side note, if possible I would suggest removing your neck when re-treating your neck, it would have been super unwieldy to do it attached to the guitar). I laid out a small bench with my chair next to it. On the bench I put down the box that my neck came. I got several old clean t-shirts that were smooth and clean and tore them into good sized cloths. If I had been thinking ahead I would have bought a pack of cloth baby diapers. But the old tshirts worked fine. Some of the suggestions say to use a paper towel, but I dont think that would stand up as well to the rubbing (see below) and I would suggest a cloth.
I set this up in my garage and opened the garage door for good ventilation. I also did this at night to lower the temperature a bit (I live in Vegas) since I didnt want the oil drying too much.
I took a small dab of oil on my t-shirt rag and ran a small strip of it on a small piece of scrap wood along the grain. I found it easy to see where the oil had been applied. It is colorless, has a slight wet sheen and is easy to see when help up to the light at an angle. Having tested it on the scap board I ran a small, light swipe of oil on the back of the neck, starting on the back of the neck at the base joint (figuring if I screwed anything up it would be the part that will get joined to the guitar body). Believe me, it would be hard to screw this up. Though I was nervous, there was no reason to be. The oil goes on smooth, it is obvious where you have applied it and where you havent. And you can easily rub off any exess.
Please also know that I am not a woodworker or a carpenter and I dont work on my own guitars. So I am a total novice at this and I didnt have any problem.
The first thing you see is that the oil puts an unbelievable sparkle to the wood and brings out the figuring. It is really amazing. You will also notice that the oil soaks into the wood, leaving some on the surface of the wood.
I ran a small coat, section by section, over the back of my guitar neck, leaving the peg head untreated (so I could hold it) and the fingerboard untreated.
After that, I set the neck down on the box on my bench, frets down--which kept the neck nicely elevated.
I let it dry for 5 minutes. Then I took a different t-shirt rag (I always maintained an application rag and a wiping rag) and I wiped the whole back of the neck down.
You will notice that when you first wipe you get resistance against your wiping. That is the drying excess buildup on the surface catching against your rag. After a bit of wiping yuo should have that off without any problem. My belief is that if you let it dry for more than an hour you might need to steel wool the neck. Because my neck was totally raw and totally untreated, I didnt want to have to use steel wool, so I only let the neck dry for 5 minutes before wiping it.
Once I got the back of the neck totally wiped down so that my cloth glided smothly along the back, I then held the neck by the bottom and applied the oil to the front and back of the peg head.
I let it dry 5 minutes and wiped it down as above.
Then I applied the oil to the fretboard. Of my "three stages" of application (1. back, 2. peghead and 3. fretboard) this was by far the most difficult and time consuming.
It is hard to run the oil with the grain, which you are supposed to do, since the grain normally runs along the length of the neck and the frets interfere with that. But I just did my best. Again, I let it dry 5 minutes. Then for the hard part—wiping the excess off between the frets was very time consuming. It probably took me 30 minutes to wipe down the fretboard. Maybe I was overly anal, but I wiped each fret space down individually and then I used the edge of my fingernail under the t-shirt cloth to scrape along the edge of where the fret joins the wood, removing any lingering debris from that area. I would hold the neck sideways and lift it to the light to check if I had missed any stuff after each fret I did. This took some time.
In any event, the first night I put two coats on as I just described. Each full coat consisting of my “three stage” process of back of neck first, then peghead, then fingerboard.
I wiped it down fully after both coats.
I probably could have stopped here. The neck was markedly more beautiful. It had a sheen that brought out the beauty of the wood. The birdseye maple looked spectacular. In fact, you could really tell that the wood was getting sealed. When you first sight along a truly raw neck you can see the grain, and the spots of the birdseye maple, and you can also see small fissures that is just the raw wood. The oil seals these tiny fissures up. I can say for sure that all those fissures were not fully filled after only 1 coat. It wasn’t until after the second coat that I can say that all of them were sealed.
So I let the neck sit overnight.
The next night I put two more coats on it exactly as I detailed above for a total of 4 coats on the neck. I am glad I did. It felt and looked even more sealed and beautiful. I was worried that too much would “slow” the neck down. Not at all. It still felt great.
In fact, it felt so good that I almost said “to heck with the wax, this feels good as it is.”
Luckily for me I didn’t follow that thought. If the oil seals the neck and brings the wood to life, the wax is the finishing touch and makes the neck go from slick to lightning fast. As impressive of a change as it was to put the oil on the raw wood, it was just as impressive to put the wax on the oiled wood. Do yourself a favor. Don’t skip this step. I have seen some posters say the oil was so good they didn’t do the wax. Don’t listen to those posts.
I followed the instructions and started the first coat of wax right after I had finished rubbing down the neck from the fourth coat of oil. So on the second night I did two more coats of oil (a total of 4 coats) and then launched into the waxing.
The waxing is a breeze compared to the oiling.
I was going to use my same “three stage” method and was looking at a time consuming night. But it didn’t happen that way. I applied the wax in the same three stage fashion for the first coat. But the wax soaks in quick, doesn’t leave any real residue and you just take a new rag (I used two totally new rags to apply the wax and to rub the neck). The wax goes on so smooth. And, unlike the oil which gets gummy and can be painstaking to rub off, the wax isn’t so much rubbing off as it is polishing. It took maybe five minutes to 10 minutes total to put on that first coat and polish it up. Man oh man, what a difference.
In fact, in about 30 more minutes total I was able to apply 3 more coats of wax to the neck. I could have done more, but after the third coat I didn’t feel an appreciable difference when I polished the third coat from when I polished the fourth coat.
The neck is slick and sparkling.
In fact, I just took it in to my tech to swap the necks out (and change my pickups to EMGs). He freaked when he saw it. He said “holy cow, I didn’t know Warmoth finished necks like this.” I said they didn’t, I did, and I told him how I did it.
In any event, I was able to do all this in two nights. It took about two hours each night to do the oil application (I did 2 coats each night) and then about 30 more minutes the second night to wax it up. I did it all in my garage with four or six t-shirt rags, good ventilation, a small bench, a chair and lots of elbow grease.
I posted this to encourage all of you to not be afraid to do this to your necks. I am not a guy that normally works on his guitars and I was able to do it.
I didn’t really find any parts of the process that would have been fatal. Its not like you can really mess this up. If you put on too much, wipe it off. And it is clear when you put on too much.
Good luck!
Clark
I wanted to pass on my experience with finishing my unfinished neck.
Here's the story:
I have an orange axis (I'm sure that doesnt come as a big surprise). As with everyone else who has played a MM guitar, I instantly fell in love with the raw neck. I have a hard time playing on anything else.
So much so that I now want a raw neck on my other favorite guitar, a two color sunburst 54 strat reissue.
So I ordered a bitchin' birdseye maple neck raw from Warmoth (by the way, I cant say enough good things about those guys or the neck I got).
I did my homework on the FAQ and on these forums and learned about the Birchwood Casey Tru-oil and the Birchwood Casey Gunstock Wax, which MM uses on their necks.
I got the Tru-oil at Wal-mart, but they didnt have the wax (seems to be a common problem). I found the wax at a Sports Authority, though I imagine other sporting goods stores that carry firearms would also have it.
So here was my dilemma--the FAQ tells me how to maintain an axis neck, but I wasnt going to maintain one that was already treated, I was finishing it for the first time. So I just decided that I might have to use several coats. Hoping I wasnt about to screw up my $300 neck, I forged ahead...
As for the applicaiton of the oil, I found out that the MM factory dips the necks in the oil. I obviously didnt have that luxury. Here is what I did:
I took the neck by itself (not yet mounted on the guitar; as a side note, if possible I would suggest removing your neck when re-treating your neck, it would have been super unwieldy to do it attached to the guitar). I laid out a small bench with my chair next to it. On the bench I put down the box that my neck came. I got several old clean t-shirts that were smooth and clean and tore them into good sized cloths. If I had been thinking ahead I would have bought a pack of cloth baby diapers. But the old tshirts worked fine. Some of the suggestions say to use a paper towel, but I dont think that would stand up as well to the rubbing (see below) and I would suggest a cloth.
I set this up in my garage and opened the garage door for good ventilation. I also did this at night to lower the temperature a bit (I live in Vegas) since I didnt want the oil drying too much.
I took a small dab of oil on my t-shirt rag and ran a small strip of it on a small piece of scrap wood along the grain. I found it easy to see where the oil had been applied. It is colorless, has a slight wet sheen and is easy to see when help up to the light at an angle. Having tested it on the scap board I ran a small, light swipe of oil on the back of the neck, starting on the back of the neck at the base joint (figuring if I screwed anything up it would be the part that will get joined to the guitar body). Believe me, it would be hard to screw this up. Though I was nervous, there was no reason to be. The oil goes on smooth, it is obvious where you have applied it and where you havent. And you can easily rub off any exess.
Please also know that I am not a woodworker or a carpenter and I dont work on my own guitars. So I am a total novice at this and I didnt have any problem.
The first thing you see is that the oil puts an unbelievable sparkle to the wood and brings out the figuring. It is really amazing. You will also notice that the oil soaks into the wood, leaving some on the surface of the wood.
I ran a small coat, section by section, over the back of my guitar neck, leaving the peg head untreated (so I could hold it) and the fingerboard untreated.
After that, I set the neck down on the box on my bench, frets down--which kept the neck nicely elevated.
I let it dry for 5 minutes. Then I took a different t-shirt rag (I always maintained an application rag and a wiping rag) and I wiped the whole back of the neck down.
You will notice that when you first wipe you get resistance against your wiping. That is the drying excess buildup on the surface catching against your rag. After a bit of wiping yuo should have that off without any problem. My belief is that if you let it dry for more than an hour you might need to steel wool the neck. Because my neck was totally raw and totally untreated, I didnt want to have to use steel wool, so I only let the neck dry for 5 minutes before wiping it.
Once I got the back of the neck totally wiped down so that my cloth glided smothly along the back, I then held the neck by the bottom and applied the oil to the front and back of the peg head.
I let it dry 5 minutes and wiped it down as above.
Then I applied the oil to the fretboard. Of my "three stages" of application (1. back, 2. peghead and 3. fretboard) this was by far the most difficult and time consuming.
It is hard to run the oil with the grain, which you are supposed to do, since the grain normally runs along the length of the neck and the frets interfere with that. But I just did my best. Again, I let it dry 5 minutes. Then for the hard part—wiping the excess off between the frets was very time consuming. It probably took me 30 minutes to wipe down the fretboard. Maybe I was overly anal, but I wiped each fret space down individually and then I used the edge of my fingernail under the t-shirt cloth to scrape along the edge of where the fret joins the wood, removing any lingering debris from that area. I would hold the neck sideways and lift it to the light to check if I had missed any stuff after each fret I did. This took some time.
In any event, the first night I put two coats on as I just described. Each full coat consisting of my “three stage” process of back of neck first, then peghead, then fingerboard.
I wiped it down fully after both coats.
I probably could have stopped here. The neck was markedly more beautiful. It had a sheen that brought out the beauty of the wood. The birdseye maple looked spectacular. In fact, you could really tell that the wood was getting sealed. When you first sight along a truly raw neck you can see the grain, and the spots of the birdseye maple, and you can also see small fissures that is just the raw wood. The oil seals these tiny fissures up. I can say for sure that all those fissures were not fully filled after only 1 coat. It wasn’t until after the second coat that I can say that all of them were sealed.
So I let the neck sit overnight.
The next night I put two more coats on it exactly as I detailed above for a total of 4 coats on the neck. I am glad I did. It felt and looked even more sealed and beautiful. I was worried that too much would “slow” the neck down. Not at all. It still felt great.
In fact, it felt so good that I almost said “to heck with the wax, this feels good as it is.”
Luckily for me I didn’t follow that thought. If the oil seals the neck and brings the wood to life, the wax is the finishing touch and makes the neck go from slick to lightning fast. As impressive of a change as it was to put the oil on the raw wood, it was just as impressive to put the wax on the oiled wood. Do yourself a favor. Don’t skip this step. I have seen some posters say the oil was so good they didn’t do the wax. Don’t listen to those posts.
I followed the instructions and started the first coat of wax right after I had finished rubbing down the neck from the fourth coat of oil. So on the second night I did two more coats of oil (a total of 4 coats) and then launched into the waxing.
The waxing is a breeze compared to the oiling.
I was going to use my same “three stage” method and was looking at a time consuming night. But it didn’t happen that way. I applied the wax in the same three stage fashion for the first coat. But the wax soaks in quick, doesn’t leave any real residue and you just take a new rag (I used two totally new rags to apply the wax and to rub the neck). The wax goes on so smooth. And, unlike the oil which gets gummy and can be painstaking to rub off, the wax isn’t so much rubbing off as it is polishing. It took maybe five minutes to 10 minutes total to put on that first coat and polish it up. Man oh man, what a difference.
In fact, in about 30 more minutes total I was able to apply 3 more coats of wax to the neck. I could have done more, but after the third coat I didn’t feel an appreciable difference when I polished the third coat from when I polished the fourth coat.
The neck is slick and sparkling.
In fact, I just took it in to my tech to swap the necks out (and change my pickups to EMGs). He freaked when he saw it. He said “holy cow, I didn’t know Warmoth finished necks like this.” I said they didn’t, I did, and I told him how I did it.
In any event, I was able to do all this in two nights. It took about two hours each night to do the oil application (I did 2 coats each night) and then about 30 more minutes the second night to wax it up. I did it all in my garage with four or six t-shirt rags, good ventilation, a small bench, a chair and lots of elbow grease.
I posted this to encourage all of you to not be afraid to do this to your necks. I am not a guy that normally works on his guitars and I was able to do it.
I didn’t really find any parts of the process that would have been fatal. Its not like you can really mess this up. If you put on too much, wipe it off. And it is clear when you put on too much.
Good luck!
Clark
