Oiled

Here's a quick shot of the body and neck after 3 coats of plain finishing oil. The oil has really brought out the grain of the wood, and emphasised the contrast between the cherry and the piece of mahogany inset into the body around the sound holes - that's come out better than I'd hoped.


Before I started working with it, I'd not appreciated the beauty of cherry as a wood. You get some idea of the colour variation in this photo ...

Mahogany has never been one of my favourite woods, but the neck also looks a lot better with a few coats of oil on it ...

You can also see a small "nick" in the bridge pickup cavity - on the side closest to the control cavity. The pickup that I'm going to use (EMG) has a slightly different shape to the standard pickup ... but after 5mins with the chisel, it now fits into the cavity! The minor alteration won't be visible because it's all underneath the bridge piece, but it shows that you can't assume anything!