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That finish looks sweet Mike .. we need to talk more !!!

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

I was going to say it was beautiful, but I've changed my mind. Elegant is more appropriate.

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Aoibeann

Michael
That is fantastic.
Very well done

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Andy Z.
http://www.lazydogguitars.com

I'm insanely jealous over the quality of everything on this. Man, do I ever feel inferior!

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Thanks everyone! It really gives you a boost to get nice comments like these. I came up with the staining process by having an idea of what I wanted to get, but no easy way to achieve what I pictured in my head. I had a bunch of potassium dichromate kicking around and liked how that oxidized maple. I started there, with a weak solution of the pd in water, which I brushed onto all of the maple surfaces (wearing vinyl gloves to avoid skin contact), this was exposed with sunlight to give a very warm appearance to the maple. I wanted to get a more amber look to the entire guitar. Knowing that spruce is quite often blotchy, I tried gel stain, knowing it should penetrate more evenly. It looked terrible on the top, and great on the maple parts. The top still looked blotchy, so I scraped and did some sanding on the top and decided to try very light wash coats of shellac. This looked fairly clean. After getting some expert advice from many folks (Kevin Ryan, Kevin Gallagher, Mario Proulx, Bob Garrish) I shot the isolante to isolate all of the weirdness from the top coats of polyester and it worked like a charm. Mario was right when he told me " you can almost spray the isolante over motor oil and get away with it". The rest of the finish went very well from there.

Outstanding! Was there a long learning curve with the poly?
Terry

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Well, I am the reciever of this guitar from Collins Guitar. It is the most beautifull guitar I have ever seen. The pictures do not do this guitar justice. Period...... The sound is like I have never heard before. The high end is awesome. The set up is perfect. The finish is perfect. The feel is perfect. Can I say more. Yea, I could probably write a book. Thanks to all who helped Mike in the process. Untill you have this guitar in your hands, you have no idea. Peace.....
Dave Shanks