Progress

Today, I worked on the fret board for the Red Special, sanding the 18" radius to 400 grit. sorry, no pictures. it really wouldn't look all that different from the last images. I'm debating putting a thin coat of shellac on fret board. Something similar to what Fender does with most of their maple fret boards. I'm worried that if I just leave it bare, the fret board will discolor too easily. Where as with the finish, it will take longer for it to get that more vintage well played look. I just have to find out if I shoul rub the shellac on first, and then put the frets on, or the other way around.

In additions to working on the neck I;ve also, sanded the sides of the Red Special smooth. taking out all the band saw marks.

On a different front I got back to work on the Reverse Strat and the Carved Tele bodies. I sand off all of the excess grain filler an put on the first stain coats. They are a combination of Black and the likely base color. Red on the Tele and Blue on the Strat. The Tele is looking a bit more purple than I was hoping, Will see if that looks any different after my first sanding. The reason for staining and then sanding that first stain to help bring out a more 3-D look to the grain. The first coat gets absorbed more along the grain lines than the rest of the wood. At least that's what I've read somewhere on the interwebs.