Making a cigar box guitar with ChickenboneJohn. Part 13. Putting a finish on the neck.

Another fairly easy stage - I point out our way of doing it to achieve a good finish with simple methods and materials. Tru Oil is our favourite finish, because it is simple to apply and easy to get good results. Preparing the wood is vital to get a good finish, but we don't go to extremes of sanding to very high grits. The key to any finish is applying more thin coats rather then fewer thick coats. Don't rush the job and let each coat dry fully before putting on the next. Also it is important to build up the finish with multiple coats, and sand out any flaws or runs before the final coats. We use 0000 grade wire wool and paste wax to cut back the final coat and then manually buff to a satin sheen. A light application of our fretboard treatment will finish the job off nicely. This is only one way of doing it, but brushed finishes can be difficult to get really even. Sprayed finishes require you to mask off the fretboard, and we find them messy, wasteful of materials and quite expensive. To get a really good gloss finish with spray lacquer, it needs lots and lots of coats, plenty of rubbing down between coats and a lot of working the final finish with progressively finer abrasives and buffing compound. We prefer the tactile end result and low-tech aspect of a hand-rubbed oil finish, which is more in keeping with our overall approach.
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