A few shots hanging up under the setting sun.
The lacquer is already settling into the maple grain, especially where my palm rests.
Love this guitar and the Deacci Green Faze pups sound great in it.

A few shots taken a week ago, out in the sun for some fading.

Finally strung up and played for the 1st time in a few months and it plays as good as ever but feels better.

Hard to explain but it feels old and new at the same moment and the Manlius pickups in it sound great.

May toss the Deacci Green's in there sometime soon to see how they fare but for now I will leave her. 

99% done minus the stamper that has been over a month to receive after my custom order was screwed up and I was sent the wrong one...and the place is 2 hours from me, total hassle. 

Still need to age & fade the finish a bit but that will be over the next few months.

Not gonna do the razor blade method...hell no.

Well it is nearing completion, finally.
Still need to add the stamped serial, lacquer over it, and dull/age the finish a little bit but otherwise good to go.
Been a tough but fun journey as since my spontaneous pneumothorax in January life just has not been the same.
Chest has moments of tightness, back is still sore and can be quite intense pain wise at times, and just overall life is good but...different however life is impermanent and each moment never the same as the next so just take it a second at a time and live.
I need to do a little more work on the knobs to get them where I want them but that is minor.

Still waiting on the white Dimarzio pickup rings and my Stamp to arrive so while I have been waiting I thought I would age the light gold knobs to a nice old amber along with rounding out the edges at the top.

They look much better than the store bought really dark amber knobs that came original on my Nav.

Hopefully the rings will be here tomorrow and the stamp...well they sent me Gothic #2 by mistake so I had to send it back and wait for the correct one to be shipped...brilliant.

White pup rings arrived today,  gave em a quick ageing and tossed em on.
These rings are about a mm wider and longer than Dimarzios  and the holes are off by a mm but they still work well.
Had to lightly sand the guard so they fit however but unlike the Dimarzio rings, these have some nice pliability to them but are still a solid white.
The colour in this photo is almost dead accurate but still a slight tinge of red vs in person it is more brown.

Lacquer has sat for awhile to off gas so polished it up a bit, reamed the overflow of lacquer out of the pot and switch holes (minus a little piece chipping off and patching it back with some thinner).

Put the bridge posts back in yada yada.

Not much news on the Navigator other than adding a few more top coats of clear for sanding back/levelling it out and also adding some darker colour to the back followed by a few coats of clear.

Enjoy your weekend folks & the crappy cellphone pics.

Did a few little touch ups & clear coats on the Nav burst refinish today.
It hit 18C today...in March!!
Some arm wear was done last night and it came out pretty decent I think.
Lacquer is still off gassing so it isn't smoothed yet but you get the idea.
The colours below are almost dead on how it looks in person, bursts are a bitch to photograph accurately.

Scraped the binding yesterday and tossed on a coat of clear both front and back.

It looks so much more cherry and darker in the photos than it does in person.

Excuse the crappy cell phone photos.

So I did 3 different stages of bursting today.
The 1st was a faded browned cherry with a brighter yellow amber center.
I dug this but since I did a nice top clear coat this gives me the ability to wet sand this all off and start over if need be.

Then I decided to see what a slightly wider burst with a still more yellowed center would be like.

I dug this too.

Then finally I decided, since I have always been a Brock Burst fan, to do it up that style with a wider burst but more browned cherry and a more aged amber center.

Here under sunlight:

Here in the shade:

That is all for now folks...or folk if anyone is reading this =P

So managed to get 3 coats of yellow along with 3 light coats of clear on top today to seal it.
Tomorrow I will be getting the tea burst on top then coating with some amber to orange the overall finish.
Sad to see some of those lovely big mineral streaks have shrunk in size due to the sanding but that is really hard to avoid however I exposed some new ones throughout the top so that is cool with me. =)
This will always be my keeper so this is both fun & educational for me.