I was travelling all last week, so I have spent a hectic the weekend getting ready for final assembly. I received the new hardware on Friday so am now only missing the glide bearings that sit at the rear of the tuners.

In terms of finishing, the original idea was to leave all wood their respective natural colors, since this is the way I prefer it. But, I have ended up with the back of the guitar stained “ebony black”. The thought was that this would go together with the color that I put on my first ever build, the Rockette. The deep orange would have looked good with the black back. The issue is that I don’t remember how I achieved this finish… A violin builder, Tommy Jakobsson, taught me some of the basics of lutherie back in the day and I’m pretty sure he tipped me off on this finish. Since I am on a deadline and Tommy has not returned either phone calls or e-mails, I had to abandon it. I have a very strong memory of the finish being a two-step process involving chemicals rather than stains. It reacted with the wood itself and became an incredibly vivid orange when oiled. Does anybody know what this process is? I have googled as much as I had time for, and there is a process involving potassium dichromate that could be it. Potassium dichromate, however, has been banned from use in Sweden for 15 years because of its health hazards. I bought two kinds of orange stain that I tried, but I eventually decided to leave the top as-is and just oil it. Here’s what it looks like now:

I hate to disappoint the reader who loved the control placement of an earlier shot. I decided on a regular 5-way lever switch in the last moment since the shape of it harmonized with the f-hole.

Above, the back has been stained.

And the top oiled.

I also assembled the mounting plate for the string locks.

And mounted the string locks. Tomorrow, when the oil has dried, I will string it up for the first time…