Neck Liposuction

I have been hemming and hawing about the shape of the neck - I didn't like it at all - it seemed very blocky. I did some measurements and found that there was definitely some extra material on the back of the neck as well. I'm kind of upset with myself for not being more careful about this. I just hope re-finishing it isn't going to be a problem. If I have to sand this whole thing down I'm going to be pretty bummed.

Part of my reluctance to address it comes from me being afraid that in "fixing" it I would mess something up. I also had in my mind that the bass was done and going back to sanding was a bit of a let down. So while I was procrastinating I was also losing sleep, the last three days I've been thinking about how I was going to approach this. I did a stare and compare to my other basses, did some measurements with a straight edge and came up with a plan.

I went and got some finer sandpaper for the hand held belt sander figuring that was going to be my weapon of choice. The woods in the neck, especially the ebony and the maple, are extremely hard woods, so I figured the belt sander with fine paper in it would be the right tool.

I covered the bass in plastic wrap and masking tape to hopefully protect the electronics from the sawdust.

The patient ready for liposuction on the neck:

I started off with the orbital sander, just to see what it would do - it didn't work well on the narrow neck. I decided to try a sanding block with 80 grit sandpaper in it and that worked pretty well - it took me about 2 hours to take about 1/8" off the back off the neck and to round it off.

It's hard to believe how much better it looks. The pile of sawdust wasn't even that big, but it looks so much different. I can't wait to get some oil on it and get it back in the studio. I'm sure there's no way to see the difference, but here's a couple of "after" shots for good measure.