If your gonna speed neck it....

At least put some effort into it....

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On the other hand, who's gonna see it?

I thought 'speed' referred to how fast you can move your hand while playing, not how little time it took to do the job of taking the finish off the neck!

Yea, thats pretty lame. No pride in the workmanship.

But.....is it salvageable to bring it to a good result?

Absolutely, there is more finish to be removed IMO. With a little more effort and attention to detail the result could be quite nice.

I once had a ‘91 Santa Cruz “Tony Rice” un-speed-necked and it’s been fine for well over a decade.

this looks like the Eastman 315 from Guitar Center for $499. It was in my shopping cart, but could not pull the trigger.

maybe the wear is natural......

I've seen some after-market speed neck work by some well known luthiers that seemed to my eyes to be awful work. I know these guys are conscientious craftsmen, so not sure what the explanation might be. Are they trying to make it look like natural wear? It doesn't look natural to me. The transitions generally haven't been smooth, but sudden, rough, and ragged. Maybe that's just their expectation of what a speed neck will look like?

When I did a speed neck on my MD315, I taped the neck off at the heel and at the nut but I was just trying to not damage finish elsewhere on the mandolin. My work wasn't perfect, but it was on an MD315 and I was satisfied with the results. (I do love the feel of the speed neck, by the way.)

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While I much prefer feathered finish transitions, you did a very neat and tidy job.

This is just an individual owner's judgment call... There is some precedence to making the edges of a mandolin's speed neck look like a violin's speed neck, which typically has feathered, but smooth edges. The other way to do it is to have straight smooth edges.

Functionally there is really no difference, it's just what a person wants to see. In my case, I didn't select a feathered-edge over a straight-edged speed neck, I just trusted the builder doing the work to do it well and the way he usually did this work. I had already worn a lot if not most of the finish off the back of this neck at the time I had the neck work done, which in my case also included a neck re-profile, a fret job and a complete setup.

Here's mine, done like a typical violin's feathered-edged speed neck, including whatever wear I had already put on the finish on the back of the neck...

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Br1ck

While I much prefer feathered finish transitions, you did a very neat and tidy job.

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Yep, I prefer a feathered finish transition, too. I did originally plan for a feathered transition, but when I was sanding (some people use razor blades), I found it difficult to get even finish removal. There would always seem to be little areas in which the finish would be removed too quickly while surrounding areas hung on tenaciously. I finally just went with the abrupt transition.

I've posted these pix in other speed neck related threads so here they are again. :))

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It took a bit of effort to scrape the thick and sticky black paint off this 70's era Gibson neck replacement on a 1956 F-12. Apparently it was sent back to the factory and Gibson chose to paint it to look original. Playing in warm, humid weather was frustrating so goodbye black paint and I left the wood naked for the past 15 years or so. The pic on the right shows accumulated "natural" patina.

Len B.
Clearwater, FL

ps - I also got rid of the heavy Kluson tuners in favor Gotohs with real pearl buttons. Much improved all the way around.

When I stripped the neck of my Lebeda I would have preferred more of a feathered transition. But with the nail-hard lacquer finish on this instrument, it just wasn't in the cards. Some finishes are easier to feather than others, this was the best I could do:

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I prefer a curve-shaped transition like this. A squared-off transition doesn't look like natural wear to me. But what the heck, it's more about the feel than the looks. Nobody else ever sees the back of the neck. This feels good under my hand.

The only finish is two applications, years ago, of Tung Oil with a few drops of stain added to accelerate the "amber" look instead of fresh white maple. I haven't had to touch up the finish at all, and it doesn't pick up dirt.

Jonathan Mc Clanahan does a beautiful job on speed necks

That is not a bare look speed neck. It is something else.

Jonathan is a incredibly gifted builder Attachment 181468Attachment 181468