A couple of comments and a terrifying story too.
If you were looking to have a faster finish on the neck, you can easily do that by abrading the surface of the existing finish, as many have mentioned. I would recommend that you use something like #0 synthetic steel wool. It'll take forever if you use too fine of a steel wool. And you don't want to use actual steel wool as it will break down into tiny metal fibers that will destroy your pickups and electronics. Synthetic steel wool is plastic and non-magnetic (3M makes the good stuff; you can get it at marine supply houses or auto paint stores) so there's no danger to your electronics. Of course, you still need to mask everything off that you're not sanding, but I don't think you need to pull the electronics if you mask it well and don't use steel wool.
If you do want to strip the varnish entirely, then you will probably want to immediately treat the bare surface with an oil finish. If you don't do that, you probably won't like the dirty appearance it will develop over time, especially if your neck is mostly maple. Even with the oil finish, it's hard to keep it from getting dirty looking.
Many years ago, I had a custom Series II built (my bass is the one on the Series II product page). It had a very exotic burl rosewood top, fancy inlays (this was the first appearance of what would later be the Alchemy inlays) and was the first bass with ebony neck lams and a stinger omega. It's also a 35 scale. Mostly because of the (awesome) inlay, it took a long time to build - seems like it was at least 15 months, probably even a little longer than that.
Somewhere in the build process, I think somebody overlooked the 35 scale instructions. When I went up to pick up the bass, it was awesome, but the neck was odd in a couple of ways. The face lams that cover the headstock scarf joint came to a weird point under the first fret area instead of being behind the nut (something had been cut for 34 scale instead of 35). I don't think there was anything inherently wrong with the structure, but it looked sort of scary since the thinnest part of the neck was actually under the fingerboard. You don't ever want to think about an inadvertant drop and snapped headstock, but you *really* don't want to think about that snap point being in the neck itself (especially with side LEDs!).
The neck also felt really thick and chunky which was also non-optimal for me.
I visited it in December (it must have been 1987, but might have been 1986) and it brought it home for a couple of weeks, then brought it back up so it could go to the NAMM show as a show bass.
After the show I went up to the factory and discussed the neck issues, which Alembic graceously agreed to address. This was going to involve adding additional back headstock lams to fill out the notch (much more complicated than I would have thought, since they had to increase the shaft length of the tuners to make up for the extra thickness). Since the additional lams were going to be cause for the neck to be refinished, they told me that they would reshape the neck profile as well.
So, I figured I'd handle some other basses up there and tell them to make it like one of those. Bob, who had worked with me on the bass starting with wood selection, told me that we should just do the shaping while I was there.
Then, with absolutely no further ado, he whipped out a hand scraper. In a world of CNC milling machines and carbide-tipped grinder, the hand scraper is an old world artist's tool. It's basically an index-sized sheet of fine steel that has a sharp burr ground onto the edges.
He clamped my bass into a padded clamp, held the scraper firmly in his hands, and ran it along the back of the neck. A feet-long curl of laminated wood and finish rolled off. My eyes pretty much popped out of my head! Remember, this bass had just returned from being the fancy showpiece at the NAMM show, so watching the flawless finish peeled off like that left me in shock.
I guess it would be appropriate to say here that if you want to enjoy sausage, don't watch it being made. I was humbled to watch his artistry with the scraper, but there was definitely a part of my brain saying hey, the neck isn't THAT bad. After 6 or 7 passes, he pulled the bass out of the clamp and asked me whether that was better. I know I was still in shock.
It took a couple of cycles of this, but soon the neck was perfect. It took another 6 weeks or so before I went back up to get the final fix, and it was awesome.
If you read up on the hand scraper, you'll find that it's the classic tool of choice for doing something like this. Sanding is harder on the surface and fills the surface grain with dust which negatively affects the appearance. A sharp scaper in the hands of a skilled user is fast and precise. Of course, there's no way that I could use it like that. If you're planning a minor reshaping of the neck profile, sanding will work fine, but you might consider alternatives if you are doing a radical reshaping.
David Fung