Clue me in - all rosewood necks

[eclecticsynergy]

I was surprised how bright all-rosewood necks tend to be.
As with any wood, it'll vary from piece to piece so I guess not all will be as bright.
But the ones I've had have been both bright & snappy, with a fairly immediate attack.
IMO in general it's not as lively as most mahogany yet perhaps not quite as stiff as most maple.

My advice for treatment: oil the board, wax the back.
Love the feel of my rosewood MusicMan, done with gunstock oil & wax I believe.

 

[beaubrummels]

Whatever finish Fender does on theirs really works for me. The body is satin thin, but the neck is just right (a little slicker, but some kind of thin finish)

 

[ThreeChordWonder]

For now I'm going to leave the neck raw, as that seems to be the consensus around here.

The body finishing is coming on slowly. I made a cut-back pickguard, but I'm not happy with the knob positions, so I'm going to give it another go before final assembly.

As proof of concept, however, things are looking good.

Here's a shot with everything except the selector switch roughly positioned but not screwed down yet, and the body hasn't been smooth sanded or buffed out yet.

The selector switch will be a Switchcraft 3-way toggle mounted in the upper bout, Les Paul style. I have a 12-inch long 1/4 inch drill bit and I'm going to drill through the upper inside of the neck P90 cavity into the hollow (I've already checked) upper bout. There won't be any fancy phase or series / parallel switching in this one, just bridge, bridge + neck, neck.

Controls are two volumes and a master tone, 500K pots and a 0.022 uF tone cap. The output jack is in the normal Telecaster spot. If the knobs prove to be too tall I can swap them out for Strat or SG ones I've got sitting spare.

Comments / suggestions welcomed. I like the pearloid pickguard but I'm not sure about the black P90 covers or rings.

 

[ThreeChordWonder]

Chrome P90 covers ordered. Whopping 7 bucks on Amazon.

I sprayed a black band the full thickness of the body minus the top wood. It hides how the end grain soaks up stain more than side-on grain, looks neat, and provides a break between the two woods. The full thickness of the top remains exposed round the edges so it's not a burst and doesn't look like a cheap paper-thin veneer.

And in doing so I figured out how, and why the burst came into being.

 

[ThreeChordWonder]

Like this:

 

[Open lane]

Looks amazing!

 

[ThreeChordWonder]

Did the most dangerous part of the job today - drilling through the top inside of the neck P90 cavity into the upper bout.

I used a 12 inch long 1/4 inch diameter drill bit and went through at a shallow angle. The masking tape I already had on there stopped the drill bit skidding, and I put some card on the edge of the cavity just in case. It turned out to be easy peasey lemon squeezey and I didn't go through the back or mess up the front. Phew!

 

[beaubrummels]

Was that to put the switch in the upper bout?

Looks really nice so far. I really like all the natural wood grain going on.

 

[ThreeChordWonder]

^That's the plan.

 

[ErikH]

That's some really nice grain. It pops real nice with that finish.

 

[ThreeChordWonder]

I think the top has come out as good as it's going to get. I sanded it down up to 3000 grit then wiped on three more coats of poly. It came out so smooth I didn't want to risk hitting it with 10,000. Instead I just gave it a good going over with car rubbing compound, then three coats of Meguires car polish. Nice red mahogany look to it in three right light, but if I was doing it again, I still reckon I would pop the grain with something lighter than full black. Oh well. It still looks the biz IMHO.

Still more work to do on the back and sides, however.