Doing Things Wrong

Superfreaky Part IIIa

Laying out the parts to see what it will look like. The body has been finished for a long time. Yesterday I encased the neck in plastic - 4 layers of polyurethane, wet-on-wet. Today I smoothed it out with 320 sandpaper, a gentle touch to remove any remaining wood grain and give a good surface for the final topcoat. It will need a few days to fully cure before then.

I'm using Krylon satin poly. It goes on very nice, and you can get it pretty cheap at Hobby Lobby with their ever-present coupon. It also seems to be less yellow than Minwax or the other one. This Ric is coming together nicely. I've started to pull together parts for another.

Update:

The final coat of poly is on the neck and looks great. I'll give it a week to cure hard before I start installing hardware. I also want to re-polish the fretboard.


Maple is a hard heavy wood that is your best choice for necks and small parts. The best maple is eastern "rock" or "sugar" maple. In much of the country, this is what is stocked at your local home center, just go there and pick out a nice straight piece. I the west, you will instead find locally grown maple, which is not as good, but probably good enough.