Guitar Neck Question

[bcjim]

I have a 1984 Reissue Kramer neck. I am planning on building me a guitar soon and was going to use this neck in the project since i already had it. It is a one piece hardmaple neck. The fretboard is really too light in color for my taste. Is there anyway you can stain it or anything to darken the wood of the fretboard?

[silvertonessuckbutigotone]

you could, but most likely you'd have to refret and sand all the finish off of it that s on it now to stain it. What wood is it? Do you know what kind of finish is on the wood?

[bcjim]

you could, but most likely you'd have to refret and sand all the finish off of it that s on it now to stain it.  What wood is it?  Do you know what kind of finish is on the wood?

←

It is made of hard maple. Not to sure what kind of finish. Can i reuse the frets, or would I have to put new ones on?

[silvertonessuckbutigotone]

if I'm not mistaken isnt it hard if not impossible to stain hard maple?

[skyguitarworks]

you could, but most likely you'd have to refret and sand all the finish off of it that s on it now to stain it.  What wood is it?  Do you know what kind of finish is on the wood?

←

It is made of hard maple. Not to sure what kind of finish. Can i reuse the frets, or would I have to put new ones on?

←

unless you just really love this neck i think you may be getting into more than you want to trying to stain it, don't get me wrong, it can be done....but you could sell it and get one you want much easier

[DannoG]

It is NOT hard to stain hard maple. It accepts stain quite readily. The only issue, which in this case is very important, is that you'd need to strip off all, and I do mean all, of the existing finish to stain the wood. And then recoat it again after the staining. If that is too big a job, you could buy some toner laquer in a rattle can and apply that over the neck. Most of those finishes are not very transparent, so if you wanted to build up many cots, you'd lose any figuring.

[silvertonessuckbutigotone]

hmmm, I dunno why warmoth says this:

Maple

(Acer saccharum-Hard Maple)

(Acer macrophyllum-Pacific Maple):

We offer two types of Maple: Eastern Hard Maple (hard rock maple) and Western Soft Maple (big leaf maple). Hard Maple is a very hard, heavy and dense wood. This is the same wood that we use on our necks. The grain is closed and very easy to finish. The tone is very bright with long sustain and a lot of bite. This wood cannot be dyed. It looks great with clear or transparent color finishes. Western Maple grows all around us here in Washington state. It is usually much lighter weight than Hard Maple but it features the same white color. It has bright tone with good bite and attack, but is not brittle like the harder woods can be. Our flame ( fiddleback) and quilted bodies are Western Maple. This type of maple works great with dye finishes.

http://www.warmoth.com/guitar/options/options_bodywoods.cfm

[MzI]

Thats obviously wrong, hard maple accepts stain quite well, ive had no trouble with it whatsoever

MzI