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Tinting the neck on my Tele


guitardustin

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Hello,

 

Can anyone recommend a good product to put on the neck to give it the vintage tint look? Also, will I have to remove whatever finish is already on it? It's a standard American Tele maple neck so there isn't very much on it from what I can tell. Any other ideas are greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks,

 

Dustin

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I think it's just clear poly that's on the Am Stds.

 

As for a rub on product... I don't know of any that will work on a glossy finish. If the finish is satin or matte, many have found that you can very gently scuff up the the finish with a Scotchbrite pad and/or very fine sand paper, then apply brown shoe polish. I've done that a couple times, followed by a couple coats of Tru Oil after the shoe polish has plenty of time to dry.

 

I've been very happy with the results, but I wouldn't be comfortable at all doing that to an American Standard neck.

 

I've also used the Reranch vintage/amber-tinted nitro and it adds a nice amber/aged look, but I don't know if it works on top of poly as I've only used it on nitro.

 

Maybe there's an amber-tinted poly that you could shoot or if you aren't confident doing it yourself, have someone else shoot it for you. The main cost issue is that 99% of the time, you will have at least some minor 'orange peel' imperfections in the finish which, unless you can live with them, need to be sanded, polished and buffed out. That's pretty straight-forward in a dead flat surface like a table top, but on a neck which basically has no flat surfaces it is a bit time intensive.

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I did something similar to my Highway 1, it had a sheet-white maple neck. What I did was got some Zinsser Bull'e Eye shellac (NOT the amber shellac, btw, the clear stuff), then got some TransTint (I think) dye, can't remember what color, and mixed it up and Preval-sprayed the neck.

Shellac is great stuff. It's completely nontoxic, it adheres to any surface, such as poly, and if you don't like it, it comes right off with rubbing alcohol. You can do it without stripping the neck, I don't think that can be said for nitro

Often people mention Kiwi shoe polish, but that stuff has carcinogen warnings all over it

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