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I just now used a green Scotch Brite pad. It worked. My bends are now nice and slippery on the fretboard. Big improvement! I went with the grain. It removed the gloss and friction nicely.
As a long time woodworker and someone working more with instruments all the time, I have switched from steel wool to Scotch Brite abrasive pads to avoid the steel particles left over. Steel wool does a great job for many applications but the abrasive pads work just as well and comes in several grits. For something like taking the sheen down on a fretboard, it cuts the finish just as well as steel wool and gets into all the tight spaces steel wool does without leaving behind particles. Start with the red pad.
Thanks! My offset telecaster has a gloss finish neck and I want to REMOVE ALL OF IT! I took the whole thing off. Clapton said in an interview that he took gloss finish off of necks Especially off the back because it slows down your hand when playing fast, making it stick. Clapton cant be wrong on that! He also prefers Maple over Rosewood.
Perfect video, thank you! Do you think this method would work for the headstock as well? for vanity reasons I really don't want a shiny finish on any part of the neck (I'm building a custom tele for myself). Do you think i could achieve the same result of essentially a matte finish without ruining the decal underneath the gloss? Have you ever tried/thought about this? Thanks!
Honestly, I've never done that, but I do know that as long as the decal is completely covered by the current finish, AND hopefully by more than one coat, then I see no risk in using the ultra fine 0000 steel wool there LIGHTLY, just enough to remove the gloss if you wish. But take a good look first, and see if you can determine whether the finish is thick enough to try it. Good luck.
Dude this is so helpful!! I absolutely love my Modern Player Tele but the gloss finish is impossible for me.. my hands get sweaty easily. I almost sold it and was still planning to sell or trade it for a Tele with an unfinished neck... but now I don't think that's going to be at all necessary. Thanks dude!
@@neilrambaldiSo I got the steel wool but now I'm getting cold feet. Just wanted to ask your opinion on this. Should I really devalue the guitar by sanding down the gloss (which is needed on the entire neck not just fingerboard) which is amber-colored and even darker than the glaze on yours, and could very much look bad... OR, should I just do what I was gonna do and sell/trade it for a Tele with an unfinished neck? It's worth about $500 right now and I'm positive the alteration will decrease that. I just wanted an easy fix but now I can't stop thinking about the downsides lol. Any advice? Thanks in advance.
@discobones If you are unsure, and haven't felt a matte finish neck or fretboard before, then I don't suggest you do this until you know what that feels like. It has less tack than a gloss finish, but an unfinished neck has zero tack once the service has been broken in. There is a noticeable difference between a matte finish and an unfinished wood surface. This technique I did still leaves a finish as you might know. As far as your guitar neck having a darker finish, I honestly don't know how that will turn out. That's the best advice I can give. Good luck.
I have a Tokai strat I bought new back in the early 90s. I love it but recently I have been (finally) trying to learn bending and vibrato. What you call "sticky" I guess is this: when I try to do bending, my finger kind of chatters on the (still almost new, glossy, maple) fretboard. I don't know if it's just my bad technique or if it's what you are addressing. So I guess this might help me cross that river? Thanks to anyone for advice.
Question: Would you recommend applying a coat of Tru-Oil after buffing down? I ask as I would assume that would help protect the maple but still retain a smooth (non-sticky) feel?
Hi, and thanks for your comment. To my knowledge, Tru-Oil is only for putting on unfinished wood. What I am doing here is leaving the finish to still be present, but with no more gloss for a smoother feel than if there was a gloss. Tru-Oil could be a good alternative, but the wood would have to be unfinished to my knowledge, before applying. I would recommend researching further before you decide. Good luck!
I understand why you would say that, but it's not literally sticky. It's a sticky feeling as a result of friction due to the surface being so smooth that more of the surface of your fingers are making full contact with the finish, rather than having a slightly roughed up surface (so to speak) on a microscopic level which causes very tiny amounts of space between your skin and the surface, therefore making slightly less contact, and causing less friction. That's why necks with no finish at all but that are simply sanded are the smoothest feeling (i.e. less friction) as you slide your thumb back and forth on the neck. It's because the fibers of the wood are creating tons of space (relatively speaking) on a microscopic level between your thumb and the neck.
The soft poly paint feels “sticky” when you get some sweat up. Nitro is smoother & less sticky as it finishes harder than the flexible polyurethane (also why it cracks, it doesn’t expand & contract with the wood)
Noob here, I’m using a squire affinity telecaster made in China model(idk what finish is on there please let me know if you know) off late I’m finding it a bit Rough to glide about for soloing up the higher frets. Do you think adding a gloss finish to it would make it easier or should I keep my fret board the way it is?
Hi. I want to remove the glossy look from a guitar headstock (so it looks dull or unfinished if possible from a distance). Does the wool leave visible scratches?
I have 1984 Ibanez Rs135 glossy maple board! It has lots of dings and I had the frets levels recently and when he pulled off the tape some of the poly came off the board it was so thin! The edges of the board in some places the poly also came off! How could I get rid of all these blemishes? Can I sand it down? Seems like if I want to get rid of all the dings in the gloss the only way is to sand it down!
If you want to get rid of the blemishes, yes, the usually way is to sand the fretboard down and refinish it, but that should ideally be done with the frets off of the guitar (i.e. requiring re-fretting), but you could also try masking the frets, but that's tricky. There are probably good videos on RU-vid about those subjects, which I encourage you to search and check out. Good luck! You could also leave the blemishes and let the fretboard have that character! :)
Was checking this out and decided to do this to the high gloss on my maple fingerboard. Only problem I have is getting right up next to the fretwire. Any suggestions or do you just have to work a bit more to get into those areas?
I went right up against the fretwire and over the fretwire with the #0000 steel wool, which gave me the opportunity to polish the frets. I saw no harm in doing so with the ultra fine steel wool. BUT if you would rather not do that, you can carefully mask each individual fret, but obviously that is tedious. Good luck, and thanks for stopping by!
Thank you for this. What are your thoughts on using naptha for this? I only ask because youre obviously knowledgable and I've seen several people online swearing by naptha, but I don't know what to think of it
Thank you for your comment. To my knowledge, being a solvent, naphtha is not used for this objective--at least with regard to deglossing an existing gloss finish to feel more like an oiled wood, which is what I'm essentially doing here to achieve a similar effect.
No it does not, because there is still a finish there. On the other hand, if there was no finish, some but very few might hear a slight difference, but most people don't even notice that.
Nice! How's it holding up after a year and a half? Has playing it made it more polished again, or is this modification permanent/long-lasting? I've been putting off buying an otherwise great feeling guitar because of the glossy fretboard.
It has held up so far. I'm sure if I played it full-time, it would begin to have a subtly greater sheen over time because that's naturally what happens as you know, but doing what I did to the fretboard will never allow it to become a gloss without me laboriously bringing it back to a gloss using other methods besides playing such as rubbing it with mineral oil and rottenstone, followed by serious buffing. Good luck!
@@neilrambaldi Thank you! Thanks for the guide, and the update, I'm sure some of the other viewers are bound to have the same question. Well, I'm off to buy the guitar later next week thanks to you. It's a Larry Carlton S7, a very comfortable feeling, relatively cheap gigging Strat - angled heel, scooped/contoured body around the lower horn for comfortable higher fret access, roasted maple satin neck, a very, very glossy 9.5" fretboard with abalone inlays, rolled edges, etc. All that for a bit over 500$.
Because you are still keeping the finish on the neck and only removing a very tiny layer at the very top of it, the coloring shouldn't change much at all, if any. This guitar doesn't have a dark (i.e. dark amber) clear lacquer to begin with, and the difference in color was nearly undetectable. Good luck!
@@naturelife7536 A glossy fretboard doesn't hinder playing broadly, but it can potentially have a negative impact as I'm describing here with regard to bending and vibrato particularly--BUT usually only experienced players would notice such a difference.
@@neilrambaldi would it have any effect on sliding? And is there is really noticeable difference in vibrato to experienced players or does it depend on how skilled the player is? Ive also heard that it gets sticky after a while
@@naturelife7536 Yes, it also has an effect on sliding. Regarding vibrato, it depends on how experienced the player is, but as an experienced player, I can definitely say it is very noticeable, and I'm sure inexperienced players would notice at least some difference too.
Everything I did is in this video. Nothing was done to the finish after using the #0000 steel wool. Also in the video I made it clear that the wood is not to be made bare in the method I did by stating to only sand enough (with that grade of steel wool) to remove the gloss on the finish -- meaning (in the trade of wood finishing) only the very top layer of the polyurethane finish. Hope that helps and thanks for watching.
Did you apply another finish after you rubbed that steel wool? Did you just remove the finish or did you apply another finish to make it feel like matte?
When I rubbed the steel wool, I only removed a very fine top layer of the finish, so no refinishing was necessary. The 0000 steel wool will make a gloss finish become matte.
