Ok, so this is when things started to get a little squirrelly for me. I sanded the poly off of the neck and I got a little carried away. I ran into two problems. The first problem: I kind of sanded a little ripple in the back of the neck around the 10th-11th fret. It wasn't too bad but I felt that every time I tried to sand it to even it out I was taking a little bit more off the neck and that started to worry me. I figured I had 2 options, one, just leave it since it wasn't that bad and maybe not noticeable (unless I pointed it out) but at the end of the day I would notice it and I knew it would bother me forever so I decided to go with option 2. Option 2: I decided to rub a really thin coat of quickwood over the area and to sand it flat. After going to about 3 stores I still couldn't find the correct color but I knew I was painting it black anyway so I just used whatever color they had. I applied it and sanded it. I'm very happy with the results. It might not look pretty when looking at the unfinished neck but once I painted it you would never know. It looks and feels perfect so I'm glad I didn't just leave it. Here's a picture of it. Again, I know the off color makes it an eyesore but you can't see it now so I'm fine with it.
The second problem: In general I took a little more off of the neck than I would have liked. I didn't think that was the case until my bandmate got a new Gibson Custom Shop NR Firebird. The neck on his was a huge baseball bat compared to my bass. I didn't remember if mine was like that when I got it because it had been so long and I barely played it before I started stripping it. At this point I was totally convinced that I took way too much off of the neck and that I had ruined it which lead to me putting it aside for months. I was pretty bummed. Especially since the necks on those basses are already so thin. I kind of figured it was f***ed. I painted it and stuff but it sat around unassembled for a long time before I revisited it. I eventually took it to John Karras, known on this board as John_K and I compared it to his original Bachbird. I came to find out that, although mine was a little thiner than his it was much closer than I thought. Thank God. His neck was also very thin and he convinced me that mine was totally fine. He also reminded me that the Bachbird's were finished in a thick poly and mine was a thin nitro which was also something to consider. I really thought mine was a goner before I compared the two basses. Anyway, as I stated earlier, he helped a great deal with mine but again, I'll get more into that later.