Hi Phil,Here’s a few shots of my guitar now finished. Being a violin maker, I used the finishing techniques used in violin finishing, including use of scrapers to shape and smooth the wood, use of aqueous gelatin as a sealer, aniline dye as an orange-yellow base color and clear oil varnish with my blends of artist’s oil colors mixed in to achieve the various transparent color hues in the creation of the burst effect. Most of the finish was hand applied like is done with violin finishing, using no brushes, just a gloved hand to apply the finish, spread and blended with other colors by patting with fingers and thumb. It is tedious and much slower than spraying but I wanted to see if it worked. Also one can experiment with just a few grams of varnish to dial in the exact hue desired. It creates a different effect than spraying, allowing wood grain to show with less of the plastic/opaque look that spraying creates. I wish I had ordered the more heavily flamed maple front than what I did as it would likely have more intensity of flame that would pop with this type of finishing. Maybe I will do that on the next one!I also practiced my silversmithing creating a sterling silver truss rod cover. It is engraved in raised floral shapes using a technique called repousse which involves dapping three dimensional shapes into the metal from the backside using various shapes and sizes of punches struck with a hammer. Making that occupied my time while the varnish dried which took several days between coats. Maybe when I get bored I’ll also engrave the screw heads.Now it will need several weeks under the u.v. lights to fully cure the varnish.I am learning to play and so far adapting some of my violin pieces to guitar…it’s the same principle just using picking/plucking instead of bowing. Guitar playing with its long cheese-cutter strings is certainly going to make it faster to get my fingertips in shape for playing than the violin does.My pickups are SD Pearly Gates at the neck and SH4 at the bridge . . . it’s nice and mellow being wired with RS Guitar Works Vintage Upgrade Kit of pots and POI caps. I also built an 18-watt tube amp which is a perfect complement to the guitar to amplify its vintage sound.Thanks for building a wonderful guitar. It was a breeze to put together and finish. I could not be more pleased with how easy it was to complete.All the best,Bob
