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How do you put a finish on a maple Fender Licensed neck. Sanding Sealer, then Nitro, right over the frets? Helppppppppppp! Check it out.



This is it, can you tell it has no finish? It's a C-shape Tele Neck Made in Japan under Fender License. Frets feel a tiny bit sharp yet. So how do you do.... it?

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Check here for experts in electric finishing...Guitar Reranch.

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

 The Fender way is to finish right over the frets.

Finish,level frets,sand then buff.

This way you get very shiny frets at the same time you are buffing out the finish.

An extra buffing wheel would be good as the frets turn the wheel black.Too much dirt and you could wind up embedding gunge into your top coat.

No need for sanding sealer on maple IMHO

Thanks JJ, Brett, and Jeff,
I'll take a look at that site JJ. This is what I thought, spray right over the frets. It seems so weird after taping off fretboards on all my acoustics.

Off to the shop, thanks guys. Isn't she pretty?

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

JJ, Cool thing reading the article, nitro doesn't like bare unprimed metal, so it crawls off, much like it does when fisheyeing. Believe me, I've seen enough of those for a lifetime.

They use dye to achieve amber tinting, then use clear overcoats to protect it. That probably works better than amber in lacquer. I've had the stewmac amber crawl away from edges creating a darkened amber ring on the face and back of a neck. Dyeing first seems to eliminate that. Great tip.

Great site there at Guitar ReRanch too, thanks.

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

On my fender style guitars i just seal the neck with some shellac sanding sealer and then lightly go over it with 0000 steel wool. You need to keep your hands clean of dirt though cause they can soil easy. It gives it a nice bare wood feeling which i love. I don't like a gloss finish on my necks.

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Guitars, guitars and more guitars.

Bruce, I just finished one with 2 part polyurethane right over the frets.
Then I took a nail, and filed a little "cove" into the head that matched the
radius of the frets, and scraped the finish off of them. Can't remember
where I heard of doing it that way.... Next I rubbed it out to a nice satin
finish. Looks and feels great, but it was really a pain to do it that way.
Next time I'll probably finish it before fretting.

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Mike

"The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh." The Stranger

That lacquer (or any finish) over frets thing is the dumbest bit of heritage we have from Mr. Fender. You have to understand that Leo saw necks as being disposable, and well up into the 1970s, if you sent an instrument back to Fender to be refretted, they'd throw away the neck and bolt a new one on. The frets were also inserted from the side and if you don't remove them by sliding them out, you've got a lot of fingerboard repair work to do.   See David Collins' excellent thread on removing vintage Fender frets.

I personally think the best thing to do with maple 'boards is to finish them first, rub them out, and then fret them. I do it with polyester every now and then, and you get a great look, none of those fillets of finish at the fret edges, and it's refrettable.

Thanks guys, I'll give it a go and see what works.

This Japan Fender License neck is really cool, but, already, sharp fret ends and it's brand new. Maybe I should cook it in the oven and get the shrinking over with..... just kiddin'   

I think I know why third graders don't build guitars.

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

  Bruce,I usually do a preliminary dress on the fret ends and fretboard edges before finish so I can get that broken in feel.The finish will also be less prone to burn through on a rounded edge.

Just can not wait to see her complete!

Good luck.