Staining

metalchurch · Post by **metalchurch** » Monday Jun 30, 2008

Is it possible to take a neck with a Maple fretboard and stain the board to look like Rosewood?

Any ideas or tips on how to do this?
Will I have to clear coat it?

Thanks

MeYatch · Post by **MeYatch** » Monday Jun 30, 2008

I imagine you could stain it like you could any piece of maple. I also think you'd have to clear coat it like any other maple neck.

I doubt you'd fool anyone looking even remotely closely though.

metalchurch · Post by **metalchurch** » Monday Jun 30, 2008

I thought it would be possible, but the endurance of the stain from the contact of my fingers is my concern.

I found the neck that I want, but it has a Maple board, and I basically want to darken it up as much as I can.

I love the look of maple but not for this project.

Thanks for the input Mitch.

MeYatch · Post by **MeYatch** » Monday Jun 30, 2008

should be fine if you don't wear through the finish. Just keep an eye on it.

Do you have any other maple necks?

My jazz bass is 11 years old and doesn't show much if any wear. I think the old nitro necks wore a lot, but if you use poly, you probably won't have much if any problems.

MOONDOGGY · Post by **MOONDOGGY** » Monday Jun 30, 2008

A good sealer should be able to keep in the stain, but I'd go with a heavy clear/lacquer finish over top of the sealer.

Stew-Mac and All Parts should have a darker stain for used to blacken lower quality Ebony fingerboards that have lighter grain. (Gibson supposedly uses this on their ebony boards. It allows them to use a cheaper grade ebony, but make it look like more expensive black ebony.) I'd imagine these supply sites might have a stain that's dark, but not quite black. If not, you should be able to use any dark stain from Lowes/Home Depot; I'd just make sure you seal or clear coat it very well.

Also make sure you remove ALL of any existing finish before you stain. Otherwise, the wood won't soak up the stain evenly and it will turn out blotchy.

A lot of 'luthier' stains come in powder form that you have to boil from what I understand. I've never messed with them. I've found that food coloring actually works very well. It is water soluble, but just make sure you clear coat shortly after staining it because it will get everywhere and it isn't easy to get off! It does spread relatively well. You can put it on light, or apply many coats to get your colors much darker.

Hope this helps.

Thanks

Dan

metalchurch · Post by **metalchurch** » Tuesday Jul 01, 2008

You know I just thought of something, i'm going to have to remove the frets for this.
Anyone have fret tangs or a fret press?

If not, I'm not going to ven bother because the cost of tools would out weigh it.

MeYatch · Post by **MeYatch** » Tuesday Jul 01, 2008

you don't have to remove the frets. Laquer does not stick to metal very well. You may have to scrape them with a razor blade and repolish them afterwards

metalchurch · Post by **metalchurch** » Tuesday Jul 01, 2008

I will have to remove them to sand the fretboard to prep for staining.
Otherwise it would probably look sloppy right?

MeYatch · Post by **MeYatch** » Tuesday Jul 01, 2008

it probably would be less work to remove them than try to sand around them. If you end up going accross the grain, which you almost certainly would have to to get around the frets, it will look like total ass.

paul · Post by **paul** » Tuesday Jul 01, 2008

If you plan on removing the frets why dont you just put a rosewood or ebony board on? But if you are going through all that hassel why not just buy a neck with an ebony board and be done. Dont fuck around with staining a maple board you wont like it and the stains they make for fretboards are made for a porus rosewood not for a tight grained maple. It will not darken the maple like you think it will.
Paul

metalchurch · Post by **metalchurch** » Tuesday Jul 01, 2008

I found a Strat head neck with all of the specs that I want. But I can only find one with a Maple board.
I contacted the guy and they were sold out of the Rosewood.
So I got this brainstorm about maybe staining the maple, not knowing much about it, so I thought I'd put it up on here to see if I could get any help.

And from what I gather it is going to more of a pain in the ass than it's worth.
Considering the time and cost of tools, and that's also with results that might not be what I'm envisioning.

I gotta lay off of the beans when messing on ebay! LOL!!

I did buy a Charvel pointy headstock 22 fret, and a reverse Jackson 22 fret. Just got to decide on what i'm gonna do now.
I wanted to go with a strat head to be more like Jake's guitar, but it seems that this project was doomed before it got started.

Damn Fenders anyway.

metalchurch · Post by **metalchurch** » Friday Jul 04, 2008

If it weren't for the risk of warping the neck, I thought of burning the fretboard to darken it up.
I've never seen anyone to that to a neck, but I have seen a nice rear loaded Strat on time that had some kick ass wood burning done to it.

It was a Castle scene with Dragons and what not. Think Dio and you get the picture.
I would love to do that sometime. I would start with a Gibson Explorer or something with alot of surface area so it doesn't look cluttered up.

I've never done wood burning before, so if anyone has a Strat I'll gladly experiment. LOL!!
Damn Fenders!
(that should be my signature, but the one I have is so freakin awesome right now)

songsmith · Post by **songsmith** » Saturday Jul 05, 2008

metalchurch wrote:(that should be my signature, but the one I have is so freakin awesome right now)

Thank Paul for that one. For some reason, the word, "douchery" just struck me as hilarious. It sounds sort of medieval, like, "Thou art sentenced to the rack, for crimes of 'douchery' against The Church. Away with thee."

Plus douchery abounds in metal, even though... it does not fit.

Someone should commission Tim Klock to do a guitar body, he's really good at using a torch to get a patina on wood. He did a carving of an alligator, and blackened it, and I swear to Jeez, it's realistic enough to make you think he has a live gator in his studio. Incidentally, he has an acoustic jam session every other Wednesday at the studio, with a piano onsite... the Mama Corn boys play rock songs there occasionally. Excellent music, excellent mellow time.----->JMS