What kind of finish for a neck?

[John Masciale]

I have now finished reworking the first neck that I made, correcting a number of the mistakes.  I scraped the neck down to bare wood, completely worked the peg head, and reshaped areas of the neck.  I added a scoop.  I used a proper peg reamer, and had to rebush a couple of the peg holes.  I've finished it with boiled linseed oil mixed with a solvent.

 

So now I am at the point where I want to put a finish on the neck.  Are there any suggestions?  Last time I used canarba wax worked in with steel wool (0000), and finally a soft cloth.  What kind of varnishes were used?  Could I/should I  do something with shellac?

[Bell Banjos]

Did someone say shellac? OH yes you should do something with shellac!! When your oiled wood loses its greasey feel you can perform old time magic on your neck.

Get 3 to 5 coats of shellac on, put 1/3 denatured alcohol in the mix  or it might get streaky or lumpy. Wait a couple days....then....

go to your local limestone cutting factory and have a buddy scoop up some dust (rottenstone) in a can. Make sure it's 'virgin' without any little pebbles in it - OR - buy a jar online. Kind of expensive, but it's magic. It's better than steel wool, pumice, and all the banjo playing angels in heaven put together.

Get a couple rubber gloves, 2 little paper cups and a piece of white cotton cloth.

Pour mineral oil into the cup, about 1/2" deep. Take you cloth and dip it in, get it good and wet, then smear the oil on about a 4 inch area, anywhere. Take your cloth and touch it in your cup of rottenstone and start rubbing it on the oily part of your wood - you'll have to dip into the rottenstone 3 or 4 times maybe. As you rub, you want to feel it go from slick to almost gritty. Don't worry about grit, the rottenstone dissolves away and into smaller and smaller microscopic pieces. It's not stone, it's dinosausaurs and sea creatures' remains. Organic.

There's no need to wipe the areas clean, when you've done the whole neck, take the cloth you've been using and wipe the whole neck a few times and it's going to start to get a lustre and a super smoothness. THEN, take a new clean cloth and repeat the dry wiping, you're still rubbing some 'rotten' remains around and your neck will feel SO smooth - nothing like you've ever felt with modern finishes. And it's tough.

There. The secret's out.

[John Masciale]

Terry,  That is awesome!   Thank you, I'm going to give it a try.

[Dan Gibson]

I like boiled linseed oil all by itself with no additional finish.  I removed the finish from a Boucher-style neck with 0000 steel wool and refinished it with boiled linseed oil straight out of the can. (I had not thought of diluting it at the time.) I can see no reason to add a layer of anything else except more linseed oil if needed.  It's very smooth,  doesn't stick to my hand and leaves a nice satin look.  I'm told it darkens with age -- how much age I don't know -- but that's fine with me.  Hope that helps.

 

Dan

[Bell Banjos]

Boiled linseed oil finish IS nice by itself. But many times too much linseed oil gets put on. An old finish like that actually involves turpentine too, the turp will harden in time.

I don't like using the turpentine mixture because turpentine stinks for so long and makes me sneeze!!

But man, you ain't lived until you've rubbed some rottenstone. (On shellac).

I use linseed oil for one reason, to darken the wood and bring out the contrast in the grain before I seal it with shellac. I'm not against an oil only finish - I use it often on banjos I want to look "Early 1800's" and it makes rosewood and African blackwood look like ebony.

[Bell Banjos]

Hey, anything but polyurethene or laquer!!!

[Paul Certo]

2 caveats:

Don't use raw linseed oil, it won't dry in our lifetimes.

Buy it already boiled. Boiling it your self is very risky, as it's highly flammable.  Linseed oil-soaked rags are capable of spontaneous combustion, so dispose of them as directed on the label.  Let the factory do the boiling. That shellac/rotten stone process sounds very interesting. I may have to build something just to try it. It never hurts to learn something new. Or old, as the case may be. Is that similar to what they call French Polishing?

Paul

[Bell Banjos]

Paul, the rottenstone treatment leaves a finish that is beautiful. You would swear it is 'oily' when feeling it but, ta da, your fingers are dry. Nothing will get it smoother. Actually, I could care less about the smoothness, it's the way old instruments must have felt, and that's an old time banjo thrill for me. Sometimes I like to feel a neck rough and carved with a jacknife too. The rottenstone also polishes metal to a mirror finish.

Reg' the raw linseed oil - I used to work in a place where these wet rags were around and one day the trash barrell was smoking. The guy we told to never throw linseed oil rags in the barrell threw some in. It only took a few hours to get the smoke rolling.

Paul Certo said:

2 caveats:

Don't use raw linseed oil, it won't dry in our lifetimes.

Buy it already boiled. Boiling it your self is very risky, as it's highly flammable.  Linseed oil-soaked rags are capable of spontaneous combustion, so dispose of them as directed on the label.  Let the factory do the boiling. That shellac/rotten stone process sounds very interesting. I may have to build something just to try it. It never hurts to learn something new. Or old, as the case may be. Is that similar to what they call French Polishing?

Paul

[Bell Banjos]

Dan'l's right. Tung oil is tuff stuff.  Close to poly in protection but not so   ...MODern.

Hey, I have GUT strings, a banjo covered in shellac from bug GUTS, and my brother plays a GUT bucket bass...I'm trying to think of a band name......  ?

[Paul Certo]

How about Guts & Glory?  Seems fittin'.  I used tung oil on one of my dulcimers. The other has Birchwood Casey Gunstock finish, left over from my  muzzle loaders. 

Paul

[George Wunderlich]

I would agree with shellac.  Lay down a base by using any oil (linseed, olive or walnut oil) on the bare wood.  Rub this in with any mild abrasive like a mild emery paper.  Let this sit overnight and rub off any excess.  Then lay your shellac over this, shellac will adhere to oil that is not dried.  The oil gives the wood a nice deep look and the shellac locks this in.  When you use the rotten stone consider olive oil.  You only need enough to suspend the abrasive.  When finished get a good quality wax and do a single coat well rubbed off.  This will protect the finish and get rid of any oil that is still on the surface.

[Matthew Mickletz]

Since this finishing process has come up again, can't hurt to revive the post I gleened more info about it from in addition to talking to Terry directly just prior to ordering my kit.  Step-by-step for those new here or just interested in how I got my results.