I am planning to stain my Highway One Strat's maple neck a vintage amber color using ColorTone Concentrated Liquid Stain in the vintage amber shade from StewMac. To accomplish this, you have to first remove the factory clear coat from the neck through sanding and/or chemical removal. Then you have to apply the stain. Then you apply a new clear coat over the stain once the desired tint is reached. I am trying to avoid damaging the serial number stamped on the back of the headstock. The only way I have come up with thus far is to place masking tape over the number and 'Made in the USA' to keep the sandpaper from damaging it. However, if the serial number is painted underneath the clear coat, I believe I can sand through carefully until I see that the clear coat has been removed. This method would allow me to saturate the wood surrounding the S/N with stain without harming the S/N. However, if the S/N is painted above the clear coat, the only method I can think of is to mask that area off to protect it from accidental removal. Does anyone know if the S/N comes before or after the clear coat? Also, any suggestions on other ways to accomplish this project are very much appreciated. Thanks.[/u][/i]

Welcome to the Forum sp845! I would purchase another neck in the color you want rather than change the color of the one you have

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.

Hi sp845: with friendly respect, that's the wrong way to go about it.

For starters, the serial number is a decal. Although there are decals that can be applied straight onto wood it is unlikely that was what was done on your HWY1. Instead, the factory will have sprayed some polyurethane lacquer, applied the decal onto that, and then sprayed topcoats above to seal it in.

In other words, you are not going to get down to bare wood without removing the decal. In any case, masking tape doesn't work well to protect an area from sanding - try it and see.

And moreover: the "vintage" effect you want to emulate is that of old lacquer turning darker with time, not tinted wood. So ColorTone stain is the wrong way to achieve the look.

Luckily for you, the answer is much simpler. You just need to spray some tinted urethane lacquer onto your neck, and for that you don't even need to strip the existing clear lacquer. Just sand it carefully all over with some wet-and-dry paper, say P600, from any automotive or hardware store. You are doing this only to gently rough up the surface a little to provide a "key" for the new lacquer: no need to try and remove all the finish, so you can leave your decals in tact.

Then pick up some tinted polyurethane lacquer in an aerosol and have at it. I probably live on a different continent to you so I can't advise you on sources for aerosol urethane - but try Googling Plasti-Kote, I seem to recall they do one. If not, be sure that the product you want is out there: search. You can probably even choose from matt, satin or gloss.

Alternatively, if you have a spray gun and compressor then you can source a one-stage tinted urethane varnish to shoot through it from a multitude of suppliers, intended for furniture makers. No problem at all.

BTW: Fender use urethane on their HWY1 necks and most others, so don't be tempted to use nitrocellulose. It is the wrong material for the job.

Howzat?

Cheers - C

Welcome to the forum SP. Well boy were you lucky as Ceri is as talented as they come and just saved you from a potentially bad ending big project to a simple and most definitely correct one. Ceri you are the man.lol