Matching headstock finish to stained body?

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Pantslessdan
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Matching headstock finish to stained body?

Post by Pantslessdan » Fri Jun 23, 2017 7:40 am

Hey everyone, a few months ago I 'finished' my semi-hollow jazzmaster build: Image, build thread from reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/offset/comment ... emihollow/

I put finished in quotations because I just took the neck off my strat to use, but I recently purchased a Squier J Mascis neck: https://www.instagram.com/p/BVqLLioh7Pt/ off of ebay which will be going on the jazzy, and will ideally be the last thing I do to it.

Before I do that though, I had the idea to strip the finish off the front face of the mascis neck and staining it the same walnut stain that I did the body with and giving it a few coats of tru-oil to seal it. Then maybe I'd put a custom headstock decal on it after.

My only real concern is the difference in wood. The body has an elm top and alder back (or vice versa, I can't remember which) while the neck is maple. Would I be able to get roughly the same shade? Would it maybe be too much brown between the body, the rosewood neck, and the headstock?

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NICQ
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Re: Matching headstock finish to stained body?

Post by NICQ » Fri Jun 23, 2017 9:30 am

I always take pictures and make a small preview in Gimp (linux' photoshop) - helps best with the decision..

Getting the color right on maple should be no problem as long as you can mix the stain with black (same brand ideally) - normally just little adjustment should be necessary (few drops black) if any at all..

You could be right though - if it's a lighter shade of rosewood on the fretboard it could look weird

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Embenny
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Re: Matching headstock finish to stained body?

Post by Embenny » Sat Jun 24, 2017 6:30 am

How handy are you?

The only way to get it to truly match is to stain an elm veneer and put that on the headstock. The maple will absorb less stain and will be trickier to match if you really want it to be perfect. Also, I have been down the road of DIY headstock-matching (albeit with paint, not stain), and ended up concluding that a plain headstock looks better (to me) than one that is roughly-but-not-properly matched. YMMV.
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JVG
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Re: Matching headstock finish to stained body?

Post by JVG » Sat Jun 24, 2017 3:28 pm

Agree with the comment above. Embrace the maple!

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