My Soloist so far...

[ecaggiani]

Here's my swamp ash Soloist body and wenge/ebony neck so far.

The body is stained with Tru Oil mixed with burnt umber artist oil paint. These pictures are showing only one or two coats so far. Once I get the color down, I will add coats of clear Tru Oil to seal it and start giving it some shine. The body was sanded to 320 grit before adding the color, and then once the first coat went on, I sanded it to 400 since I saw some rough spots.

The neck needs no finish at all. It's perfect the way it came. Hard to see in the pictures, but the frets are gold colored and match the locking nut and Grover mini self-locking tuners The inlays are gold pearloid in the Nightswan configuration from Warmoth.

I will also be adding a gold original Floyd Rose and DiMarzio Evolution pickups. Coming along!

 

[rgand]

Looking mighty sharp already. Your finish really brings out the grain. Looking forward to more pics as you work along. :icon_thumright:

 

[Great Ape]

Simply beautiful, WOW!

 

[ecaggiani]

Thanks! This is my very first guitar build ever, and I have zero experience with wood, soldering, and everything else this project entails. Just learning as I go!

 

[DangerousR6]

That's wicked awesome, love the grain, and the wenge neck works perfectly with it... :headbang:

 

[Cagey]

I agree. Nice match. Also, the grain on the body works really well, as does the color.

 

[davegardner0]

That body looks great! I love the tint you chose and how it matches with the grain.

 

[TenThumbs]

Beautiful, love the grain in the body and the colour you got, and it complements the neck beautifully too.
How much oil paint to Tru-Oil did you use?

 

[ecaggiani]

I mostly eyeballed it but it was about 1/4 cup of Tru Oil and maybe a 4 or 5 inch strip of the oil paint. Best to go a little lighter with the color since you can build a darker color by adding more coats.

 

[rob91bob]

I love the Nightswan inlays, just wish they weren't $90, they can't be that much more difficult to do than standard dots.

 

[Cagey]

Maybe it's an offline operation as opposed to something that can be done on the CNC. I did some regular dots about a year ago and was surprised at how much time I ended up putting into them.

When I look at some older guitars with fancy "tree of life" inlays done in the days before lasers and CNC, I can't even begin to imagine how much time they must have to put into that sort of thing.

 

[Archie Macfarlane]

There's just a little hint of pensa-suhr in there which is unbelievably cool

 

[ecaggiani]

All put together!

 

[bagman67]

 

[BigSteve22]

Well done sir, very nice! Parts and colors work well together. The gold Night Swan inlays inlays are a nice touch.  :icon_thumright:

 

[rgand]

Damn, that's beautiful. Everything all ties together on it. Gold deluxe.

 

[ecaggiani]

Thanks, everyone! Of course, I now realized that I forgot to adjust the neck per Warmoth's instructions before attaching it. Which is probably why I am having trouble getting good action without fret buzzing. Time to take her apart again!

 

[stratamania]

Looks good, (not so keen on the inlays but it's not my guitar and others love them