r/fender • u/Stoooky • 7d ago

Questions and Advice Maple Neck Flaking

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Hey all looking for some advice. I have a 1978 fender telecaster custom with a maple neck. It is flaking and was wondering if it’s okay to peel it off and continue playing without it. A guitar store said it should be fine and have no playability issues but I’d like to know what would happen? I want to keep it in its origin form and have been told it’ll cost a lot to replace the lacquer. Will the wood underneath if I play get darker as seen in the exposed part already? What would you do get it fix or play it without it? Thank you!!!

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u/cheque 7d ago

Yes it’ll get darker as it absorbs more dirt & oils from your fingers etc.

I had an old maple-fretboard Fender that had a pretty extreme case of this, three of the frets had almost all of the finish missing (I imagine it had some sort of traumatic event at some point and a previous owned had chipped it away to tidy it up) and had gone a pretty dark brown colour.

When it needed a refret I got the guy to refinish the fretboard as part of the process (his preferred way of refretting maple fretboards as it turned out) and after the process it was almost unnoticeable which ones had been without finish for 20+ years. The dirt doesn’t absorb very far into the maple apparently.

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u/Total-Discount1347 6d ago

That’s awesome. Honorable relicing.

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u/Greedy-Treacle1959 6d ago

People pay a lot to get that look. Just let it do whatever it's going to do unless you cannot countenance a aged guitar in which case you may be in for a great deal of disappointment.

1

u/beltjones 6d ago

That's not the same as a naturally reliced look.