Pickup gurus...a question

[David Schwab]

Alternatively there's Carvin who backs-up their necks with only a thin coat of sealer or toung-oil and have been around way longer than Warmoth. They would know by now is a neck required a complete finish to gaurantee it.

They carve a better neck too. Warmoth necks have a hard edge to the fingerboard, and the curve coming around from the back to the side flattens out and you have another edge to contend with. The Warmoth brothers don't play guitar, so I guess that explains it. They are made well, but I dislike how they feel.

[Rick Turner]

I think Warmoth's thing is utter balderdash. This subject happens to be something I know a bit too much about...

The hardness of a finish has little to do with it's permeability to moisture migration. It's all about polymerization and closing up the minute "holes" in the finish, and/or sealing the cell walls of the wood.

I once worked for a company that was designing and making Victorian style wooden refrigerators...ice boxes...with modern refrigeration guts. One of my jobs was to research the most moisture-proof finish as the wood was constantly exposed directly to water and to condensation. You'd be amazed at how permeable nitro lacquer is. Tung oil can actually slow down moisture transfer better than a normal thickness of nitro.

The best you can do is probably to use a thin penetrating epoxy sealer, and then use the finish of your choice over that for looks and feel.

There are semi-exotic solutions for "stabilizing" wood...many of them are vacuum impregnations of various resins.

Check out Smith & Co. epoxies; Waterlox; and look up wood stabilization.

[Mark Hammer]

I don't do any finishing, so this is a completely naive question, subject to casual dismissal by those who know more.

With that disclaimer, it strikes me that woods and finishes cannot be judged in isolation. Sure, the wood feels smooth enough to the touch, but under a microscope, woods will vary with respect to the quality of surface they present to any sealants and finishes we apply. I would think that some types of finishes that might be the kiss of death to one type of wood, and use of that wood, might be perfectly acceptable to another type and use of wood. Personally, I like the way mahogany sounds, acoustically, and would imagine - albeit naively - that anything which filled up all those little spaces in the grain would detract immensely from its character. That same finish applied to a very tight-grained maple might be a whole other story. And again, a finish applied to a maple cap on a solid body might have no impact on tone, but yet have a clearly audible impact if the instrument had a carved maple top on a semi-acoustic or substanially chambered solid-body.

Similarly, depending on the density and mass of the wood, and maybe even how effectively it was dried, some types of finishes that make little difference on one type of istrument, can make a big difference on another. Some woods and contexts need to be able to breath, and some don't.

Let's use reductio ad absurdum as a way of giving the issue a quaretr twist: would a Dan Armstrong lucite guitar sound different depending on the finish used?

Does that make sense, or am I way off?

[Rick Turner]

Wood is dead; it doesn't breathe, nor do you "feed the wood" with oils or polish.

I've shot all kinds of finishes and/oiled close to 3,000 or more instruments in my time. I truly believe that it all comes down to permeability...less is better...feel...yeah, the touch is important...looks...customers like shiny things or satin things...and ultimately to the issue of finish thickness. I just do not believe that you could tell the difference in tone between .006" of nitro lacquer and the same thickness of polyester. Varnishes...well, that's different depending on their damping characteristics.

Polyester gets a bad rap mostly because of how overdone it so often is. It's really easy to shoot a thick poly finish, buzz it down somewhat, and rub it out. Doing a thin poly finish is easier than doing nitro, but you have to know what you're doing.

I do a fair amount of acoustic instrument building where the finish is more critical than on electrics (OK, I know some of you won't like that statement, but...). Polyester, either used as a sanding sealer under nitro or used as the top coating, has become very well accepted in the acoustic market. Bourgeois, Charles Fox, Collings, Taylor, and the list goes on... If you work it thin, it sounds just fine.

I now use West Systems epoxy as my first sealer coat under practically everything. It helps make the surface less permeable to fast moisture exchanges and it literally helps glue the subsequent coats of finish to the wood.

I've also done Waterlox tung oil finishes over the epoxy sealer, and that, I believe, is the best simple, next to the wood finish I've ever done or seen, and it's quick.

I am not into arguing about this stuff...been there, done that, and for a whole laundry list of reasons, what I do now is what I'm sticking to and it works on every level that concerns me including tone.

[David Schwab]

With that disclaimer, it strikes me that woods and finishes cannot be judged in isolation. Sure, the wood feels smooth enough to the touch, but under a microscope, woods will vary with respect to the quality of surface they present to any sealants and finishes we apply.

Think of wood as a very hard sponge. Lots of air pockets, and it can absorb water, albeit very slowly. The finish helps seal off the pores and slow the absorption even more.

I would think that some types of finishes that might be the kiss of death to one type of wood, and use of that wood, might be perfectly acceptable to another type and use of wood. Personally, I like the way mahogany sounds, acoustically, and would imagine - albeit naively - that anything which filled up all those little spaces in the grain would detract immensely from its character. That same finish applied to a very tight-grained maple might be a whole other story. And again, a finish applied to a maple cap on a solid body might have no impact on tone, but yet have a clearly audible impact if the instrument had a carved maple top on a semi-acoustic or substanially chambered solid-body.

The finish would have to have a lot of mass to do much to dampen the vibrations in a solid body. How would the guitar sound soaked with water? I think that would be worse. An unfinished body, especially a porous wood like mahogany would probably degrade in tone eventually.

Also mahogany and similar woods sound nice because of their weight and density. Finish wont change that.

would a Dan Armstrong lucite guitar sound different depending on the finish used?

No! Unless you paint it green.

Try this; spray paint a snare drum head (or a banjo head) and see if it sounds different.

[Rick Turner]

A banjo head will sound different if painted. A coat of paint is much thicker relative to the membrane thickness than it is to either an acoustic guitar top or a solid body top. I've worked with Bela Fleck on amplification, and he can hear incredibly slight differences in mass loading and damping. Banjo players can even hear frosted vs. clear banjo heads. The ne plus ultra of traditional skin heads is "calf slunk"...the skin of unborn calves. Yes, fetus hide... Not for you vegans out there...

[Mike Sulzer]

They carve a better neck too. Warmoth necks have a hard edge to the fingerboard, and the curve coming around from the back to the side flattens out and you have another edge to contend with. The Warmoth brothers don't play guitar, so I guess that explains it. They are made well, but I dislike how they feel.

Not every one finds the finger board edge on the Warmoth neck to be a problem. There are several back profiles available in addition to the one that is not right for you.

[Rick Turner]

Those are CNC carved necks done with absolute minimal sanding, and they're really made to be finished off by a "luthier"...or, to be more exact, kit builder. That's a "no undercut" shape carved from the back of the neck. There's nothing in that sharp corner that you can't deal with in less than three minutes with a mill bastard file. Come on now, man up!

[David Schwab]

Not every one finds the finger board edge on the Warmoth neck to be a problem. There are several back profiles available in addition to the one that is not right for you.

Yes I know. I build parts guitars for people all the time. I like most of their guitar necks, but very few of their bass neck without some reshaping.

You can see the flat edge here:

[Mark Hammer]

Thanks gents, much appreciated. I guess the moral of the story is that, as long as its thin, you're in pretty good shape.

And David, you reminded me of an old Peanuts cartoon from the late 50's in which Linus draws Lucy's attention to Snoopy's ability to hold an ear out straight and hold up a bottle of pop. Lucy asks what flavour the pop is, to which Linus replies "Grape". Lucy replies "Oh, well, no wonder".