Step Eleven: Finishing the neck
I think I said before that I was planning to keep the finish on the neck simple, and that is exactly what I have done. First of all, of course the neck needed sanding to make the top nice and smooth as well as the headstock. This I did by hand as to be honest I'd rather not use any power tools if I can help it. Not out of some kind of quest for jook joint authenticity, it's more that they scare me.
The top then, was pretty easy, just lots of elbow grease, and I did the same for the headstock to smooth out some of my dodgy filing and rasping. I decided not to do much with the shape, just a couple of curves to show willing.
As my 'handcarving' talents are pretty meagre, I've decided that rough is good, and that if anybody asks I'm building a replica of a CBG an escaped convict built from scraps on the side of the road with just rocks and sand for tools, so that he could play one last time before he died from a rattlesnake bite, alone and bluesfilled, a thousand miles from his momma and that lass up the road that he'd always fancied but never got around to strolling out with before he got nicked for something he didn't do.
That should do it.
As far as the neck goes though, after all of the sanding I simply gave it a good wipe with some Tack Cloth (available from all good Renault Dealers in Wolverhampton) and then put on a coat of some mahogany coloured Danish oil. The oil I rubbed on with an old T-shirt by the way, nowt flash, just rolled it up into a pad.
There is one last job I'm going to do once the oil has dried, and that is put some sort of name on it, I just haven't decided what yet. (If you read my Guitar Kit article, this may seem familiar.)
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