This came in with the body already beat up (reliced).
The neck was brand new with a very glossy finish that was close to the color of the body, but just a touch darker and richer than the body, so it didn’t really match.
The first order of business was to take the sheen down on the neck, which usually has a tendency to lighten the color a bit, and make it look slightly washed out.
I used some scotch brite to make the neck more matte, and while it did soften the color clash, it didn’t quite go far enough.
Since it wasn’t matching the body, the client gave me permission to relic it until “it looks good with the body.”
So I started by sanding down the edges of the headstock down to bare wood, to emulate natural wear.
This looked better, still not quite far enough.
I then sanded a little more off, and darkened the newly exposed wood, which looked even better.
So I did more of the headstock, and taped off the fingerboard with masking tape, and marked out where the strings would sit.
This was in preparation for the fingerboard relic job, as a reference for where the divots should go.
I also did more scraping on the back of the headstock and neck.
Even though it’s not done yet, I decided to apply some black coloring to the wood, to give me an idea of what it would look like when done.
A closeup of the headstock.
The fretboard divots were done by scraping, then dyed black.
In order to lock in the black stain, I put a very light coat of tung oil, which also darkened up the wood slightly.
Also some more black was added to make it look even grimier.
Now the neck is done, time for the assembly.
The cavities weren’t shielded, so they got copperfied.
The hardware used on this build was reliced just as much as the neck and body.
The pickguard has no aging, but it is matte so it works.
All done, and it plays great.
The back of the body barely had any relic done to it, but I’ve been informed that after the client took it home, he added a considerable amount of belt-rash to it.
