Acoustic Guitar Construction

The neck from Martin arrived yesterday and I am quite pleased. It appears to be a direct replacement right down to the fingerboard locating pins. The wood species seems the same although a little more figured. The contour machining is much cleaner than the original and it is straight! Hallelujah! The only thing I don't like is the color of the headstock veneer. It is paler and more yellow and doesn't match the fingerboard as well as the original. Since the original veneer is slightly wider at the neck/headstock juncture, I think I will try to swap them.

Wet the veneer with a solvent you may be surprised how much darker it gets under finish. Just note that any time you apply heat to wood you run the risk of causing a warp or twist.

One's person opinion: Enjoy the new neck as-is. Every time I see something on a project of mine that is not an example of perfection (lots of opportunity there), I try to determine if the attempt at repair will give me a better result than the one I'm looking at. Not trying to see perfection, trying to see if I'm going to do any better repeating that task. I've replaced a factory-installed headstock veneer, the one on the neck had lousy color and grain, was chipped, and paper-thin. I suspect the Martin parts don't share those features, but the original had more appeal. I think taking Ken's advice will save a heap of time, as well. Nice to get projects done and the next one started.

If it were me and I was that unhappy with the new headstock veneer, I wouldn't bother with removing the one from the old neck and just put an new one on all together. The head stock does not need to match the fret board unless that is the look you are going for. This would be an opportunity to put something really interesting on it. Just my thoughts.
Jim.

Gentlemen,
Thank you for your input!
I did wipe the h/s veneers with solvent to try and see what they would look like finished. Even the rag I wiped with showed yellow-ish from the new veneer and red-ish from the original. Since I intend to do a silver wire inlay on the fingerboard that will continue onto the headstock, I really wanted that richer color. So I went AMA (against the Masters' advice) and swapped out the veneer. I cut a caul to the shape of the veneer so that I could be sure of alignment when gluing and it worked out very well.
Again, thanks for your feedback; sorry for being so stubborn.