Would you expect to affect the tone of a guitar if you stripped the lacquer off the back of the neck? I suppose my response would have been, "yeah, I guess so, but not so's I could actually tell..."
Over the weekend, I stripped the back of the neck on my CIJ 62 Strat, and got quite a bit of a surprise... (a nice one, luckily).
I've wondered about doing it ever since I got it nearly three years ago. I stripped my early 80s JV Squier Strat neck in the early 80s, did hundreds of gigs with it and never had a problem (and I sweat buckets), so I wasn't too concerned about neck stability. I've oiled and waxed it on and off over the years, so that might have protected it (linseed oil at first, lemon oil later, and a bit of briwax every now and then since).
However, I kept holding off doing it to this guitar because I wasn't having too much trouble with the poly.
And then I got a Roadworn last year... I've been oiling and waxing that, and it feels like a dream to play for me... and now I'm finding the finish on the CIJ neck not to my taste... so I went ahead and attacked it on saturday.
Feel-wise, it is everything I dreamed it would be. Apart from the difference in frets, the two guitars feel very similar and welcoming.
But I was amazed to find a difference in tone.
I've been struggling on-and-off getting enough top-end out of this guitar. There is plenty there to work with, but it's just a tad warmer and thicker sounding than I'm used to on a strat. This is very useful in some ways, but has relegated it from #1 spot after the Roadworn arrived.
I put Sultans in it the other week, which improved things and worked to the guitar's strengths, but it still felt a little less "organic" tonally than the Roadworn (to my ears, anyway :lol:). The Sultans are the best pickups I've had in this one so far (including Texas Specials, Tex Mex, and BKP Irish Tours). I'd even started wondering about new bridge hardware, from just saddles or block, to replacing the whole shooting match... but I'm loathe to mess with this area at all because the trem is working SO perfectly.
So, after I'd spent a shoulder-breaking few hours stripping off the poly, hoovering away the dust and giving it an initial dose of oil... I was amazed to discover that accoustically it seemed, well, "different". (It's got the same strings and set-up, by the way, you don't think I bothered taking it apart to do it do you?! My wife, when she found out what was happening was very relieved to find dust sheets everywhere :lol:).
Anyway, I compared it to the Roadworn (accoustically), and a big smile broke across my face. This is quite a good test, because I've been comparing them almost daily like this for moinths :roll:. Even with the old(er) strings, it's louder than it was, and brighter. It almost feels like it sustains more - but I think that could be my imagination.
So I powered up an amp and plugged in...
It's still thicker sounding than the Roadworn, and it doesn't have nearly as much cut and bite as that one. And it's retained its rounded warmth, but suddenly the tone has more clarity and seems to "breathe" more - in fact, all the words we use when trying to describe the difference over stock pickups when you instal BKPs!
I don't want to add too much to internet "tone-mythology" here... but I really wasn't expecting this (for me) "improvement". I've read about body finishes affecting tone, and I think that might be, um, well, let's say I'm not sure I believe it's measurable by most of us... and bridge hardware - this seems a reasonable bet to me, and I have some experience of it myself (always with new strings in the equation though). And I've read about necks/fingerboards having much more to do with the tone... but I haven't read anywhere about the finish on the back of the neck having a noticable effect... :?
So, while I'm very pleased and grateful that this unlooked for change has occurred (and that it's an improving change for me rather than a bad side-effect!), I'm interested to know what other people might expect or have experienced.
(And I have a black CIJ custom tele quaking in its case, with a very similar lacquer on the back of its neck, even as we speak :lol:)
