My attempt to convert a gloss neck to a satin neck on my '78 Jazz

[TimBosby]

I recently had Pat Wilkins refinish my '78 Fender Jazz in Root Beer Brown. He made an already nice-looking bass absolutely beautiful. His translucent root beer brown finish is so well done you can't even tell the body is multiple pieces of wood. The neck has this slight natural flame to it, as does the back of the headstock. Maple board in very good shape and pearl block inlays. The bass was routed with a battery box in back when I got it, so I added an Audere preamp in a chrome jazz plate. It has a black pickguard and I bought a rosewood thumbrest which matches the root beer brown finish almost exactly. It had a chrome Badass bridge when I got it.

The bass is sweeeeet, but the only thing I still didn't like about it was that the back of the neck had this thick, plasticky gloss. It looked nice but was a bit sticky to play. Lately I've been spoiled by satin-feeling necks, so I asked Pat Wilkins how to change the gloss to satin. He explained to use 400 grit sandpaper, lightly cup your hand and do the whole neck at once without pressing too hard. He said I could then go over with a Scotch-Brite pad. Well, tonight I attempted this myself... and man, I hope I did it right!

I started using 400 grit and it immediately took a fine layer of dust off. It made everything look cloudy and I could see the horizontal marks from where I was sanding. I freaked because I was not expecting this. But figured there was no turning back, so I kept going with it until I got the whole back of the neck as evenly sanded as I could. There were still some shiny spots, and I couldn't figure out how to "blend" the newly sanded part with the glossy headstock and neck heel. So I went over the heel separately, it's wasn't easy to blend. The back of the headstock I left alone, but sanded right up to where the neck and headstock meet and tried to blend it as well as I could. Well, I wiped the dust away and everything looked smooth, felt great, but looked hazy and cloudy.

I immediately began to miss the glossiness and regret what I'd done. So I went to the 24 hour grocery store near my house, picked up some Scotch bright green scrub pads and something I found called "Sani-wax" (some kind of polish for furniture, laminate, tile, etc.) I came home, went over the whole neck again with a Scotch bright pad. This seemed to even out SOME of the fogginess and get rid of some of the shiny spots. Still looked foggy and not well blended with the still-glossy parts of the neck. So I wiped it down well, and then applied a liberal coat of "Sani-wax" to the whole back of the neck. This immediately made it shiny again. I also applied some Nano-wax (for car scratches) to see if it would take out some of the polish scratches. I'm not sure that did anything. I put more Sani-wax on it and wiped it clean. I did this a few times and now it looks shiny again, but feels like satin. I've examined it closely and the satin part seems to blend pretty well with the still-glossy back-of-headstock. The flamed parts of the neck sort of pop out more now.

I think I probably took more of the original finish off than I intended, but it looks and feels pretty close to the satin necks on some of my other basses. My only concern is that it will go foggy once this Sani-wax wears off. So I probably should not have picked this bass to experiment on, but I think it turned out well. Doesn't look radically different but the neck is VERY smooth and fast now. Doesn't feel like bare wood so I must not have taken THAT much off but I sure thought I did at first.

[DRN-PWNS]

On the one real fender i owned (R.I.P.) i used steel wool on the neck to remove the gloss worked great!

[TimBosby]

Yeah, I have heard 0000 steel wool works well but I couldn't find any at the store. Probably have to go to a hardware store for that.

The tough part is blending the satin part to the glossy headstock finish. How is this normally done? I guess I could have taken the tuners off and sanded the headstock too. Heck I could have taken the neck off and sanded the whole back of the neck more easily that way but I didn't want to mess with all that.

[lbwdog]

IMO...I'd remove that wax. Here's what I did:

Sand and steel wooled the old finish off.

Rubbed on multi-layers of Tru Oil gunstock finish, steel wooling between coats (Make sure it's dried well).

Do this for about four or five coats, and you'll be very happy with the feel of the neck. You can also stain the unfinished wood first, if you want a particular color.

[TimBosby]

Yeah I've heard Tru Oil is good stuff. I'm not going to mess with anymore though, unless is gets really funky, dirty and worn. It feels great right now and looks pretty decent.

[kraigo]

One compelling reason you might want to consider taking lbwdog's advice is to help protect against moisture. I'd trust TruOil over the wax.

I believe the local call would be "no pix, no satin neck"...

KO

[TimBosby]

Well I didn't take the gloss of COMPLETELY. It wasn't ever down to bare wood.

[Rocky McD]

Most necks have a thick clear finish on the back of the neck. You can do alot of sanding without fear of hitting bare wood. Lightly sand the back of the neck until it is smooth and without gloss. You don't need to put anything on it, it still has a lot of finish on it. After each playing, buff it well with a dry cloth. Once or twice a year you may have to sand it again. 0000 steel wool is ok, I prefer fine sandpaper, like 800 or 1000 grit. Availble at auto paint stores or some of our online guitar suppliers. Blending is not a problem. If you get unhappy with the satin finish, you can always buff it out to a high gloss as it was originally. Gloss finishes don't let you hand slide smoothly, satin finishes let your hand slide easily.
Rocky

[jongor]

Tim,

This is my old J-bass isn't it?

Can I see a pic of it in it's re-finished state?