My natural finish is starting to become glossy...how do accelerate the process?

[MoD_Scotty]

I've got an ESP LTD D-4, with a "natural stain" finish. The body is merbau and I'm not sure what the woods in the neck are. Anyway, I've started noticing that the back of the neck (where my hand comes in contact with it the most) is starting to appear glossy. I really dig it! It makes the colors of the wood more vibrant IMO, and I really want to make the entire bass look like that. How do I do it?

Here's what I'm talking about:

You can see on the back of the bass what it originally looked like:


Here's a close-up of the back of the neck, notice the glossiness:


Probably can't tell in this pic, but there are a couple spots (where my fingers contact the body a lot) where it's getting a little glossy):



Are the oils from my hands doing this? Or is it more of a buffing process? If it is an oil thing...what kind of oil could I use to finish the process?

Thanks in advance!

[Arx]

Originally Posted by MoD_Scotty

I've got an ESP LTD D-4, with a "natural stain" finish. The body is merbau and I'm not sure what the woods in the neck are. Anyway, I've started noticing that the back of the neck (where my hand comes in contact with it the most) is starting to appear glossy. I really dig it! It makes the colors of the wood more vibrant IMO, and I really want to make the entire bass look like that. How do I do it?

Here's what I'm talking about:

You can see on the back of the bass what it originally looked like:


Here's a close-up of the back of the neck, notice the glossiness:


Probably can't tell in this pic, but there are a couple spots (where my fingers contact the body a lot) where it's getting a little glossy):



Are the oils from my hands doing this? Or is it more of a buffing process? If it is an oil thing...what kind of oil could I use to finish the process?

Thanks in advance!

it's probably mostly buffing. I got a similar effect accidentally when I accidentally splattered some ink on one of my basses.

I scrubbed it with some paper towel and acetone. It didn't work that well so it tool a lot of scrubbing, and ended up shiny.

Maybe try buffing it with a brown paper bag.

[pilotjones]

I had a satin-finish bass that started to buff out to full gloss wherever I customarily touched it. I went over the whole thing with guitar polish, and the result was a fairly consistent gloss.