OK, so I ran into a little speed bump on my Pistolera roasted walnut neck experiment. Once I hit it with a couple of coats of clear, the glue seams that were once completely invisible suddenly stuck out like a sore thumb.

That brings me to my final verdict about using this material for necks: I don’t think torriefied walnut is bad, but I don’t think that I’ll use it again for a neck build. My whole reason for using it was that I was picturing just doing a clear or amber coat over this dark wood. But, due to this weird glue reaction, it kind of defeats the whole purpose for using roasted walnut as opposed to regular walnut. Additionally, the material is more brittle than walnut, and I’d go as far as saying that chunk-outs and the subsequent repairs involving glue are inevitable. As a result all of those repairs are also super-visible. In the end, I feel a little underwhelmed by the final result.

So, in an effort to beautify this neck, I sprayed the glue areas with dark brown dye. I mixed General Finishes Water-Based Dye Stain into Varathane. They mix together no prob.

Then I went over the whole neck with a few coats of amber.

I think it looks really good!

My torrefied walnut neck experiment took on a few other experiments along the way. So far, the wood itself seems to be holding up OK. I carved and fretted and carved the neck and it hasn’t moved significantly – as far as stability, everything seems to be A-OK. The glue seams are almost completely invisible. If I had any complaints, I’d say that the only one I can think of is that wood seems to be a little bit brittle. I think if it took a big hit, the neck might be more prone to chipping.

I added some oversized random fret markers to the fretboard. This neck also has a nice silkscreened mermaid logo on the headstock. I plan to incorporate more of these themes and processes in future bass builds.

Here’s a few other notes about this project:

I am always available for custom neck builds. Feel free to contact me if you are interested in a custom neck made to your specifications.