Anyone sand / steel wool the back 'O the neck?

[MANX]

Just wondering. Im thinking of maybe doing one or the other to make the finish a little less slick...my thoughts are to first try the steel wool....make it more of a matte finish.

[Fret Wilkes]

Folks here turned me onto the 3M Scotchbrite abrasive pads. They were designed for doing dishes and can be found in the supermarket.

They come in different grade of abrasive and work great..no steel hairs from steel wool.

Go easy though, they work fast!

Fret

[Mark Davis]

3M scotchbrite pads or 400-600 grit black sandpaper are the best. Steel wool fragments can get inside your pickups and possibly short them out.

[Raymond]

I hate when a shiny finish "sucks" my hand to the neck. I've used 600-grit or 800-grit sand paper. You can use it either dry or wet, though I prefer dry to "see" what's going on. You should only sand until all the shine is gone. Be very careful. Also, superfine steel wool would work but to me cleaning up all the steel residue is a royal pain in the neck (I don't have a place to work so I use the kitchen…). I've use a big speaker magnet to try to get most the stuff, but still….

[Lyle Caldwell]

+1 on the Scotchbrite. Go very easy. No pressure required. You can always take off more finish, but you can't put it back on.

[MANX]

Thanks for the replies guys, the scotchbrite seems great....but man I look at that finish and almost feel guilty thinking about taking it off!!! But I prefer to play a matte finish much better....so looks or feel? hahah decisions, decisions.

[e-merlin]

I use 0000 steel wool, but I take the neck off before I do it to keep the steel wool dust out of the pickups. I'll probably switch to Scotchbrite one of these days.

[gopop]

Over the years I've built a number of fiddles. The best thing I've found to remove glare and smooth out the finish is pumice. It's probably available at WalMart. If not, try your hardware store. It take a while longer to do things this way, but the extra time involved almost assures that you won't remove too much finish. Used wet (I mix a very small amount of Fiddlebrite cleaner with the pumice.) the stuff is like #gazillion sandpaper.

[FrankFoxBand]

....those yellow sponges with the green scrubby stuff on the top. These work great dry for poly or nitro. I actually did the whole body, followed by Dupont #7, on my '63 RI Tele for a nice Closet Classic finish.

Jimbo

[steve s]

Guys......you can use steel wool with the neck on......just put some masking tape over the pups and seal them off real good. I do it all the time.

[Vince a]

Ditto the "0000" steel wool and removing the neck!