Giving new life to your axe (mods for your humble Epi LP)

[Boxedking]

Seth Lover: the PAF Daddy! (i like that!)

ditto! I actually lol'ed! 

[morphine]

  bookmarked

[omat17]

aw..Y_Y inspiring...
by any chance, baka pwede mong mabigay mga nagastos mo na jan sa guitar mo sir??Y_Y

naisipan ko tuloy iupgrade ang LP Custom ko..Y_Y

[nalu]

Alright, my work is getting in the way of doing more stuff here... 

Just a recap... I'm done wiring the pots and caps, prepared the pickups, and wired the the toggle switch as well. Now before I put all of that together, I made a really life changing decision (just adding a touch of drama to this thread... LOL). The major complaint I had with this LP when I first got it was the sticky neck. I tried to convince myself that it would eventually go away or I will eventually get used to it. Guess what, neither of that happened.

Here are some photos of the neck. Look at how glossy and squeaky it is.





I did some researching and it looks like the Polyurethane finish is the culprit.  I tried different things, from washing your hands before playing the guitar, polishing the neck with carnauba wax, using talcum powder, etc. But all of them had no effect at all or had a very temporary effect. And I was down to one final option... sanding and steel wool.

WARNING: THE PICTURES YOU'RE ABOUT TO SEE ARE NOT FOR THE FAINT-HEARTED.... LOL

First, I placed some tape just to make sure I don't accidentally go too far along the neck.





First pass is the 1000 grit sandpaper. Do long and even strokes. The point here is not to take of the entire poly finish but to dull/scratch the surface.



Next is the steel wool to do some finishing touches. Again, long and even strokes. I used ultrafine steel wool since there's no 0000 grade steel wool anywhere.



There you go, now the neck is as smooth as my RG's neck.

[r_chino18]

^^^

Not for the faint hearted nga..  but it was a good thing you did that.. playability over cosmetics, ika nga.. nice. 

[dyames]

i almost had a heart attack!

 

[Boxedking]

  Whew! Ang lupet ng lakas ng loob mo sir!

[tsunamic]

nako. ang sama siguro ng loob ko after ko isand yan. hehe. pero kung mas komportable. ayus yan 

[Rmansh]

im gonna do this to my squier. how many times did you run the sandpaper on the neck? im not sure if you remember lol. Did you put some oil afterwards?

[Al_Librero]

There you go, now the neck is as smooth as my RG's neck.

Hmmm... did you wet-sand or dry-sand the neck?

[bryanarzaga]

^^^

Not for the faint hearted nga..  but it was a good thing you did that.. playability over cosmetics, ika nga.. nice. 

nyahaha your guitars dont need that..much of the SE's have a thin finish anyway..

@Nalu good job, but wet sand would be nice too

btw there were new Epi Lp's MIC in GC today with FR Special trems at 700USD..push pull pots for Neck and Bridge pup's and stain neck finishes..frets werent well done though..

[r_chino18]

nyahaha your guitars dont need that..much of the SE's have a thin finish anyway..

lol.. i didn't say anything bout my guitar.. satin finish is smooth enough for me..  

@Nalu good job, but wet sand would be nice too

btw there were new Epi Lp's MIC in GC today with FR Special trems at 700USD..push pull pots for Neck and Bridge pup's and stain neck finishes..frets werent well done though..

Epiphone Les Paul PRO F/X?

[bryanarzaga]

lol.. i didn't say anything bout my guitar.. satin finish is smooth enough for me..  

i like satin, reminds me of a womens catalogue..thats a different story

Epiphone Les Paul PRO F/X?

yup that was it and some others..all high action, i could slide in my 2.7mm v-pick easily between the strings and fretboard

[grasyaps]

OT na kayong dalawa! joke!

lagi kong inaabangan tong thread na to for updates. sarap manuod ng ngmomod ng guitars

[colorless krayola]

Ahhh... Alam ko na.
Isa-sand ko din yun neck ng guitar ko. Hehehe
Thanks for the idea Sir Nalu.

[Al_Librero]

If you're serious about it, I strongly suggest wet-sanding your neck. You'll still get the satin feel, pero mas pino yung scratches.

[nalu]

im gonna do this to my squier. how many times did you run the sandpaper on the neck? im not sure if you remember lol. Did you put some oil afterwards?

@Rmansh:
Can't really remember how many times, the poly is really thick on this guitar. I didn't have to worry about overdoing it. Plus, I used a 1000-grit sandpaper so it doesn't eat up that much on the poly. Again, the idea is just to put enough scratches on the poly. This way, the lines and pores on your hands doesn't act as suction caps in a high-gloss poly finish.

I didn't put oil afterwards, there's no need. The Poly finish is still there. Oil will only be necessary if you've sanded the neck to a point where the wood got exposed.

[nalu]

Hmmm... did you wet-sand or dry-sand the neck?

nyahaha your guitars dont need that..much of the SE's have a thin finish anyway..

@Nalu good job, but wet sand would be nice too

btw there were new Epi Lp's MIC in GC today with FR Special trems at 700USD..push pull pots for Neck and Bridge pup's and stain neck finishes..frets werent well done though..

@Al_Librero, bryanarzaga:
I only did dry-sanding and I ended up having un-even scratches on the neck. There's some of sort of grooves along the surface. I did a little more researching and it looks like wet-sanding is indeed the way to go to get a finer, smoother, and much cleaner result.

So, I finally decided to rewind a little bit and do wet-sanding this time around. Will post pictures soon...

[nalu]

Ahhh... Alam ko na.
Isa-sand ko din yun neck ng guitar ko. Hehehe
Thanks for the idea Sir Nalu.

@colorless krayola:
Be sure that your guitar's neck really needs it.  If you're guitar doesn't have poly finish, and it's not sticky anyway, then you really don't have to do it.
But if you have a poly finished neck and indeed going for it you might want to go with Al_Librero and bryanarzaga's recommendation.

Here you go...

If you're serious about it, I strongly suggest wet-sanding your neck. You'll still get the satin feel, pero mas pino yung scratches.

nyahaha your guitars dont need that..much of the SE's have a thin finish anyway..

@Nalu good job, but wet sand would be nice too

btw there were new Epi Lp's MIC in GC today with FR Special trems at 700USD..push pull pots for Neck and Bridge pup's and stain neck finishes..frets werent well done though..

[nalu]

Whew! Ang lupet ng lakas ng loob mo sir!

LOL... Tone and playability... that's what i'm focused on here.
Of course if it was a Gibson, it wouldn't even cross my mind to sand the neck. 
Plus, Gibsons would have lacquer instead of the ever so sticky polyurethane finish.

[nalu]

Finally got the chance to resurface and post some updates here...

So, originally I did DRY Sanding on my LP's neck to get rid of the stickness. Here are some photos of the final result.







It may not be obvious in the photos but the result was a little bit uneven. So I decided to step back a little bit and see if I'm going to get better results with WET Sanding...

[maxi_musikero]

ngayon ko lang nakita itong thread!  i'm planning to get an Epi LP soon and this thread is very helpful if i want to have some upgrades.  keep it going man!  great job! 

[wireless_system]

good work sir.
IMO 'di naman kita yang likod ng neck pag tumutog na.
kaya di naman ganun kasamang isacrifice yung finish ng wood para sa pagiging komportable.

[colorless krayola]

@colorless krayola:
Be sure that your guitar's neck really needs it.  If you're guitar doesn't have poly finish, and it's not sticky anyway, then you really don't have to do it.
But if you have a poly finished neck and indeed going for it you might want to go with Al_Librero and bryanarzaga's recommendation.

Here you go...

Sinama ko kasi sa pag-coat ng Colorless spray paint, ayun super smooth na at dumidikit na yun kamay ko. Haha
I think it needs to be sand. Wet sanding I guess.

[nalu]

Alright, now it's time to take a shot at WET Sanding.

Here are the tools of the trade.



We have a bowl of water, a 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper, a 1000 grit wet sandpaper, a squegee, and a dry cloth. Also, you'd want to make sure you have a sandpaper for wetsanding. The dry sandpaper has some glue in them that holds the sanding particles onto the paper. That glue may dissolve when you start putting water in it. So, check your labels.

Again, I masked the ends of the neck to make sure we don't accidentally sand some forbidden surfaces.



First pass, I dipped the 600 grit and run it through the entire neck. Again, long and even strokes. Since there already a considerable amount of poly that was taken off due to the DRY sanding before, I made sure that I just did very light strokes.  We don't want to completely strip off the poly and expose the paint.



Notice that some milky stuff will accumulate while sanding. Every so often, I took the squegee, dip it into the water and take off that milky stuff. This should make sure your getting a uniform traction with the poly surface.



After a few passes of sandpaper and squegee, I wipe it off with dry cloth check the entire surface of the neck if another pass is needed.



Second pass, I moved up to 1000-grit ecowet sandpaper. Basically, the idea is to smoothen out the scratches from the 600-grit sandpaper. No need to use steel wool this time.

Here are the final results:







Wow! Really big difference compared to DRY sanding. I got a more uniform and much smoother result.