I just bought an Epi LP Studio (Wine Red) a couple days ago from American Musical. Pretty nice guitar, in general (it could use some upgrades, but what can't ). Anyway, I set the guitar up to my liking (including having to adjust the relief quite a bit, they had way too much). Then, today I noticed what appear to be a couple small finish cracks along both sides of the neck (along with a tiny chip on one side) starting right below the nut, and ending at around the first fret. When I run my fingers over the cracks I can feel them 'stick out' a tiny bit. I don't really know if they were there when I got it, or if they appeared after I received it:
As far as I can tell, it's just the finish. However, it's a fairly dark red, so I can't be sure. However, the neck does seems quite stable. I held the neck about halfway down, and applied fairly firm pressure to the front of the headstock. There was very little, if any, give (seemed like normal), and the only thing I noticed was the cracks seemed to separate ever so slightly (barely noticeable), but returned to normal when I released the pressure. I'm assuming that if the wood were actually cracked, the firm pressure would have caused the cracks to enlarge, and/or possibly hear some kind of 'sound' (be it wood cracking or separating or something)?
If these are merely finish cracks, I'm not that concerned, because I am otherwise happy with the guitar. And if that is the case, should I take any measures to prevent further cracking, or just leave it be?
Thank you in advance for any help/info/tips! I greatly appreciate it!