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Double Bass I did not think this through

M

mrawl

Mar 10, 2006
8
0
Memphis, TN
#1
I recently got my bass out of my Moms house, an old hybrid Roma bass I bought in 1997. I haven't played it in eight years but really want to get back into it.. The first thing that I wanted to to with it before I started to play again was smooth out some lumps in the neck that made it, for me, very uncomfortable to play because I would be distracted by the lumps every time I would shift positions.

Well I broke out my block plane and some sand paper and I smoothed out the lumps. my fiddling took 30 minutes and the results are fantastic! It feels like I always thought that it should. I removed next to no wood from the neck so I am not worried about having weakened the neck.

Now I have one problem that I am not sure if it is a big problem or a small problem. The neck on my bass is half finished, half unfinished. I was wondering what I should do with it from this point. What should I use to finish the neck again? Is BLO or Tru oil, or Watco a good option or is there something else I should use (it has a thick sprayed on finish on the scroll and body. Should I sand the whole neck down (the part the does not have the colored varnish) and then apply the new finish?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
#2
I just finished of the neck on my bass, a maple neck. What i did was take of the original finish completely moving from courser to finer sandpapers and them wet and dry papers and then steel 0000 wool. You dont really remove any wood just the original finish and then your basically polishing the neck. I finished with boiled linseed oil.

The sandpapers went from 120 to 220 to 440 to 600. Then wet and dry papers from 400 to 600 to 800 grit using water of course and then the steel wool 0000.

I started with a badly worn and slightly damaged neck so i needed to remove a little more wood than you probably will need to.

Hope this helps.
B
 
#4
Having the back of the neck unfinished is completely normal on basses... so just take it off as the previous poster described. You can mask the edges of the neck area to get a clean edge, or feather it off, as you please. Take a look at some photos and you'll pretty quickly see the way it is usually done.
 
#6
The neck to my CCB was almost 2 inches wide when I got it, and I had to narrow it to 1 3/4 to make it playable. Of course, this meant I had to recontour the back of the neck so as to restore its symmetry of profile while taking off as little wood as possible in thickness to retain stability and playability. To refinish the neck, I used tung oil in multiple coats: wipe on, let dry, buff off. It now has a good, hard, clear, durable, organic feeling finish and unlike bare maple I don't have to worry about deterioration over time.
 
#8
Thanks for all the advice. I have the neck all sanded and it feels like a whole new bass. Now that it doesn't have a lumpy neck I want to play it all the time. I can't play it until I put on the BLO and let it dry but my little repair is definitely a huge success.
 
#9
I've used BLO on the backs of several of my electric bass necks, always liked it. Just be very careful with the rag and the open container - BLO vapors are (besides being strong smelling) highly flammable, and leaving a rag with BLO on it near a flame can lead to catastrophe.
 
#10
Doesn't need the flame-- linseed oil is one of the drying oils that can spontaneously combust. No joke-- it happens all the time when people get done with a wood-finishing job, and toss the rags in a can. Within hours the can will be smoking, and ultimately will burst into flames...without an external heat source. So either spread the rags out somewhere safe, so they can dry without heating up, or put them in a can and fill the can with water until you are ready to dispose of the whole mess.

A friend of mine partially burned down his brand-new chicken-house this way (no chickens were harmed)...but he had only arbitrarily decided to put the can of rags there, instead of in his house.
 
#12
Although BLO will work, I prefer to use a wiping varnish like Liberon Finishing Oil or Minwax Antique Oil because they polymerize faster (the finish will cure more quickly, and your rags will dry faster, reducing the risk of spontaneous combustion), and provide a little better protection from moisture, abrasion, and the acids in your skin, than BLO.
 
#13
Toothpaste. An old violin maker's trick, just squeeze a pea-sized blob onto a rag and rub it in. Keep rubbing until it's all covered and not sticky. Gives a really nice patina look with a dull, played in gloss. It also really brings out the figure.

Also works really well on the fingerboard, gives it a nice mirror-like shine.

I finished my bass' neck like this and it's beautiful. And it's free!
 

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