Antique Ash finish

[muns53]

Hi all, I got some wind under my sails to go back at my parts-caster. I bought a beautiful new Warmoth Roasted Maple neck (nice and flamey with a beautiful purple-ish rosewood fretboard) and I have a sweet HSH set of JBE pickups to put on it. I'm getting rid of the MIDI and keeping the Acoustiphonic preamp/saddles. The finish is a very nice Cherry Burst now but I've always had black guitars so the cherry is just not working for me. One ambitous idea is to sand it down, do a carving and/or woodburning with an "eagle" theme, and re-finish it.

For the re-finish, I am thinking of doing an antique ash finish, something like what Carvin does:


My purpose in posting this up here is to get some advice on finishing a swamp ash body in this style. I hunted around on YouTube and found a really great, short video which goes through the process of staining/sealing/filling, etc. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epXzTe7vJng

I'm thinking something that brings out the subtle purple of the rosewood fingerboard and also matches the chocolatey roasted maple of the neck:



Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

 

[musicispeace]

That would be a great refinish project. I was looking at some stuff today on the tele forum site TDPRI and someone used black grain filler on an ash body, sanded that down, then applied about 4 coats of Tru Oil and it looked a lot like your Carvin photo. Try Googling Tru Oil finished guitars and see what has been done with some ash bodies. The black grain filler in the example I cited brought out the grain nicely. But I have not personally done a refin yet so get the details. Best wishes on your project. I also have a hard time going with non black guitars. Roasted maple/Rosewood would look awesome with that refin.