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RemRem
Registered User
Posts: 210
(8/2/01 9:42:12 am)
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Cello neck
varnish
I'm almost done with getting rid of the old varnish of the cello
neck I got for my e-cello. As the neck is obviously from a student
cello (no luck with the Amati scroll  ) I
thought i could take the varnish off with some alkohol. But the
alkohol only cleaned off the dirt and did nothing to the varnish. It
seems that it's an acrylic (sp?) varnish so I had to melt it off.
Anyway, here's my question: what kind of varnish is usually applied
to the actual neck (that part that usually has the normal wood
color)? Maybe no varnish at all?
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CelloBass
Registered User
Posts: 35
(8/2/01 5:38:40 pm)
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Re: Cello neck
varnish
If you want to do it the professional way, like a luthier, do it as
follows. First, you sand the old varnish and the wood if it is
uneven. Use fine sandpaper. When the wood is absolutely even, do a
final polish with the finest sandpaper you can get. The wood should
shine slightly, almost like shined. Remove all wood dust carefully
with a fine brush. Buy pure linseed oil, use a small cotton cloth
and put a fine layer of linseed oil on the wood. Don't touch and let
it dry for 2 days. After that, you apply a second layer of linseed
oil, again 2 days drying. When the linseed oil has dryed, use again
the finest sandpaper and shine the neck with very low pressure, so
that almost no material comes of the neck. As you see, necks are
actually not varnished, the wood is sealed and hardened by the oil.
The advantage is that you can easily repeat this process whenever it
is necessary, without having to sand the old varnish, and the neck
keeps its grip even if your hands are a bit sweaty.
WARNING:
As other oils used by luthiers, linseed oil on cloth tends to catch
fire by itself after some minutes, without any ignition source.
After usage put any cloth with linseed oil on it into a bucket of
water.
Horst
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Todd
French 
Moderator
Posts: 227
(8/3/01 2:05:12 pm)
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Re: Cello neck
varnish
Let me add to what Horst has said - when you remove the neck
varnish, you might want to be careful to make sure you don't remove
the colored varnish that shades itself into the non-colored portions
of the neck (there will be colored varnish at either end, including
the whole neckblock area). If you do, it may look odd, and touching
up varnish is very difficult.
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RemRem
Registered User
Posts: 211
(8/3/01 4:05:38 pm)
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Re: Neck
varnish
Thanks a lot for the advise. It's actually for my e-cello and as
this baby is supposed to be all black (except the neck) I took off
all the varnish. BTW, it doesn't even have a whole neck block,
that's why I got it really cheap. And don't worry about me handling
all the chemicals, I'm a chemist and worked with stuff that was
*really* nasty 
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CelloBass
Registered User
Posts: 38
(8/3/01 4:37:28 pm)
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Re: Neck
varnish
Remrem,
I bet there are some chemists who don't know about
this special 'feature' of some luthery-oils - until they realize
that their sleeves have just started a fire Even if
you are an experienced chemist, don't use HF for your cello neck
anyway
Horst
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