Korina Tele Finishing Suggestions

[Roundmidnight]

Howdy all,

Here are a few pics of my latest project, plain maple neck w/black Korina thinline body. It will be a pretty simple bare bones old school Tele. The body weighs about 2.5 lb. This is the lightest guitar I have ever hefted. Feels great.

My plan based on reading various posts and my inbred laziness is to finish both the body and neck in tung oil. Am considering filling the body with black grain filler but I am not sure if this will add to the appearance of the body or push contrast between the plain neck and the body into the negative zone. Also would like the neck to be amber somewhat but not sure what to try. Was wondering if the dark tung oil from The Real Milk Paint Co would actually darken the maple to a nice shade but was hoping someone on the board had tried this already.

Thanks in advance for any ideas & suggestions. Have previously shot Nitro, applied dyes, shot water based lacquer, etc. Most of the more high end finishing work I have done have required at least one stripping back & resanding exercise and at this late phase in my life am more interested in winding pickups and playing the damn guitar.

RM

 

[Roundmidnight]

Photo of back. (Why are my photos sooo small??).

 

[NonsenseTele]

I would finish it clear... It's an amazing wood!

 

[jackthehack]

You can just use the straight tung oil to finish that body; no issue there... If you check out this build:

http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=402.0

it's a flame maple neck with rosewood board; just 8 coats of straight tung oil on neck (and body) and neck comes out very similar to shooting Fender Neck Amber lightly and finishing with gloss nitro lacquer on top of that. From some other posts on this board of you have a maple fretboard as well it's a little trickier as you can get some tung oil build up around the edges of the frets; have to put the coats directly on the fretboard more thinly and wipe back all excess on each coat