Step 6 - Sperzel Tuning Keys Installed

As you can see, the neck is finished. It looked good this morning so I'm done with the tung oil. Three coats is all it took. I removed the masking tape and used some steel wool to clean up the tape line and smooth the back of the neck, bolted on the tuners and put the truss rod cover back on. I'm happy with the neck.




I'm not happy with the body though. The tung oil doesn't want to go on real smooth. The finish always has small bumps where it got on too thick and didn't penetrate well. I also don't like the color, it's too brownish orange and not even. Trying to fix the problems just makes things worse, as this sand-thru indicates.

You can see the color just isn't very even. I'm going to sand the whole thing back to bare wood and start over. It'll be the same white stain, but finished off with the clear lacquer this time. Both dry very quickly, so I still hope to be playing on Monday.