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I'm about to finish up the neck on my first electric, a bolt on, and it occurred to me that I have some options for the neck finish besides the nitro that I sprayed on the body. I've had gloss finish necks before on an old guild from the 70's which I would assume was nitro, and my fender acoustic which I'm guessing has a poly finish. I've also had satin finish necks on a couple electrics and I've liked those okay. I was wondering what type of finish people prefer on their necks, I can say that I don't really care for the look mostly and to a lesser extent the feel of poly on a neck because it just seems so thick. So in terms of playability and looks, what does everybody like? Nitro? Oil? Something else?

If you have the pleasure of using an oily wood like cocobolo or some other rosewood, sand it to 600 and buff it hard with no compound. The result is incredibly smooth, your fingers just want to caress it. Other than that I generally prefer oil or something sanded with 800 or 1000.

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it's a maple neck with walnut laminations, was just reading shellac could be good for a very thin finish.

tung oil is a lovely finish for a neck, having just done my first this week. I love it. Not a fan of poly on a neck, feels almost tacky, slow.... I'd recommend the tung oil, very easy to apply, feels awesome, looks great

double posted.... oops

shellac is easy and looks great

I think right now I'm leaning towards a few thin coats of shellac. I'm really happy with how my neck feels raw but know I have to seal it to keep it from getting grimy.

Shellac is my favorite. Sand to 400 or 600, wipe on with a bit of paper towel or thin cloth folded over a couple times, re-sand to flatten any raised grain, give it another coat of shellac, and you're done. Seems too easy, but I haven't found any other neck finish that feels better.

Raw wood is of course really nice, perhaps the best of all. But it gets dirty, so not viable for most woods.

Satin is the worst. All scritchy feeling on the fingers, and ugly to boot.

Gloss lacquer/poly/French polish is ok, but a little too grippy, and when finger grunge starts to build up on the surface it feels icky.

Walnut oil is so-so. Similar to bare wood, but with a little bit of that scritchy feeling of satin that I don't like.

I haven't tried tung oil or tru-oil, but I do need to just for comparison's sake.

The shellac finish described above is smoother than bare wood, but not as grippy as gloss. It also feels wonderful on porous woods like Spanish cedar and walnut, as long as you cut the wood so there's near-zero runout along the back of the neck so the pores are long lines, rather than little pinholes coating the surface. I haven't tried mixing pore filling with this finish yet, but I suspect as long as you sand the filler back to bare wood except for in the pores themselves, it would be ok. But feeling the texture of the wood is part of what makes it so nice, so I'd only do that if I really wanted the visual effect of curly walnut or something where runout pores are unavoidable.

Sanding with lemon oil... to sticking as your palm sweats!

I just did some picture frames with KTM-SV gloss, that feels to be some slippery stuff, looking forward to getting it on a neck. Seems to brush very nicely as well as spray.

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Wiped on shellac here as well, followed closely by an oil finish (oil-based varnish, really) like TruOil, Danish Oil or Liberon's Finishing Oil.

I'm old school I guess, I prefer a nice gloss finished neck. Smooth and slick......type of finish is not so important, I doubt you can feel the difference between shellac and nitro so I use whatever I am using on the rest of the guitar. I still say the whole satin finish neck thing was started as marketing spin on a production cost cut.

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Brian

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I like TruOil or nitro rubbed out with steel wool to a soft sheen. Actually, I prefer just a flat, satin finish but I find that you quickly develop shiny spots from rubbing with your hand, especially with TruOil, so I'm one notch above satin for long term aesthetics.

Brian, I hear what you're saying about marketing and hype, but I've been rubbing out my necks to a satiny sheen for 30 years. I started doing that in high school. I know many others that have done the same. It's no faster for me to do that than to buff it. Either way, you need to have a flat finish. At that point, i can just as easily buff it as I can rub it. Buffing is probably faster, actually.

I ended up going with shellac, wiped on a few coats and polished it out with some polishing paper. Seems very thin and very slick but I'll know better once I finish the setup. It's not a high gloss finish more of a high semi-gloss which I like. Here's a pic