i recently have bought a warmonth neck and painted it with some krylon came out almost perfect no runs anyways i started wet sanding and i heard a snap there were cracks and it kept on snaping i asked my dad and he said it was the water from the wet sanding or is it the build quality i have built a guitar before and used a b hefner neck did the same thing and no cracking also i have left it for 2 days to dry. and can i return it.

No !! You cannot return it.

Unsanded, not to mention unpainted, as received and left pristine, you probably could have, but since you painted and sanded the neck you altered the product and you would have a very difficult time additionally proving that your alteration did not cause the damage.

I'm curious as to why you were wet sanding. You should never wet sand wood.
Sand and use finer grade of sandpaper... 150 to 250 to 600 and so on, but wood is porous, it does not react well to water saturation.
When you sand you are opening up the pores in the wood, depending on the wood therefore water infiltrates easily.

Does this neck (maple I assume) have an unfinished but fretted rosewood or ebony fingerboard ?
Of the three, Rosewood is the softer of the hardwoods, maple next and Ebony the densest of all three.
When you laminate a neck with either a maple/rosewood or maple/ebony
neck and fingerboard, you have two mated materials that contract and expand at different rates according to the humidity factor.
If rosewood (very porous) then once wet the rosewood expanded like a sponge( if you apply lemon oil to a rosewood fingerboard, you'll notice how quickly the oil is absorbed) whereas the maple did not absorb the same amount of water at the same rate, thus as the fingerboard expanded, it stressed the glue joint and the popping snap you heard was the release of the two woods from their bonding agent.

My guess is the neck is worthless since it would be very expensive if at all possible to repair.

Sorry but that is a hard learned lesson. Iv'e been a woodworker since I was a kid, (finish carpenter, built houses, additions, kitchens, countertops, I have refinished instruments, I never have wet sanded a piece of wood.

I've wet-sanded a 67 Camaro body between coats but that is steel not wood.
My advice is to go to a fine furniture refinishing/repair website and look up their methodology for the next time.

Good Luck.

I'd like to see pictures, but I am going to guess you got water in the screw holes for your tuners.

Is the wood cracked, or did it expand and crack the finish?

_________________
I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

I'd like to see pictures, but I am going to guess you got water in the screw holes for your tuners.

Is the wood cracked, or did it expand and crack the finish?[/quote]

there just small cracks in the tuner holes there not huge and i found hairline cracks on the top but the sad thing is the paint came out flawless and the frets just need to be crowned but how do you put pictures beacause i have them

You'll need to upload your photos to a website like photobucket than cut and paste to your post.
It's easy but the first couple of times are hit and miss since you need to get the sequence correct in downloading

upload to photobucket than let us know, one of us can walk you thru the process.[/b]

Though to be fair, I think he's wet-sanding the finish, not the wood. Which is a fine and reasonable thing to do.

Also, prior to finishing it is normal to damp the surface of the raw wood to raise the grain and sand off those stray fibres, for the finest possible prep job. So there's times and places to bring moisture into contact with timber.

I've studied this thread carefully and frankly am unclear as to where this cracking has occured and to what extent. There is mention of a "snapping" sound: man, that can't be good! If the neck was dunked whole into a bath of water during sanding then to be sure that would have been the wrong thing and might account for dramatic warping and cracking. Surely that isn't what was done though...?

More info and pictures, please.

Cheers - C

Ceri, I think he used Krylon acrylic lacquer. it's entirely possible the snapping noise was just the finish cracking. I wish we could see pictures. It's a real possibility he didn't bugger the wood.

_________________
I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

Ceri
Yes, I may agree with you on that point, on a raw body perhaps, but not after two very different woods with different densities are joined.
Rosewood is softer than maple and ebony harder then either.

I don't believe the snapping sounds were anything but the fingerboard separating from the neck.



OF COURSE WE ALL WOULD LIKE TO SEE PHOTO'S ???

Hi 53magnatone: heehee - I've seen horrible things done to timber by water, including the legs of a chair bending almost at right angles! It would be amazing to think this neck had been exposed to moisture in such a way as to make the fingerboard separate from the maple - and we'd sure as heck love to see photos of that just for the excitement of the thing, wouldn't we?

And to Twelvebar: though I haven't used the Krylon brand I have done plenty of acrylic lacquer. So far the only sound to be heard was me sneezing when I took my respirator off too soon after spraying it. I'm trying to imagine how thickly it would have been applied to produce a skin with the strength to make cracking sounds. Wow - we want to see pictures of that too!

By the way, I've also seen wetted paper fixed to a board with brown gum tape bend the wood into a nice curve. Maybe the OP masked his fingerboard with paper and gum tape prior to spraying?

One way or another, WE WANT PICTURES!!! Did someone mention that already...?

Cheers - C

most likely it was the water same thing happened when i stripped a variax body. it didnt split for a few dats then the glue joints all started to crack open. if the fret board is ok id give it a try. just consider it relicing.