semi finished strat

[Maurice]

Looking for some opinions, just finished the long process of 3 coats of ebony filler to blacken the grain and completing the 20th coat of tru oil on my roasted swamp ash strat body. As you can see from the pics there is a lot of sheen on the body with that many coats, would like to tone down the sheen to more like a satin finish. One suggestion was to buff with 0000 steel wool and wax, another was to finish with a hand wiped coat of oil based poly urethane. Any thoughts? Also does anyone know how long tru oil takes to fully cure, waited 24 hours between first 10 coats then 8 hours between the last 10 thin coats, reasonably dry here at home humidity about 27%, some one suggested it would take a full month to cure and that I should wait to wax or recoat with poly till fully cured.
ITS KILLING ME TO WAIT THAT LONG, want to play this thang!!!!! any feed back appreciated.

 

[spe111]

I don't know what you should do, but that's a pretty cool finish because it now looks like oak.

 

[Cagey]

Sounds like you're headed in the right direction, and the results so far are good.  One solid truth about finish work, though, is a lack of patience is killer.  It's what wrecks many finishes, or causes them to come out less than desired/expected. Take the necessary time to do it right, or you're liable to have to do it again, which is almost always more than double the amount of work doing it right in the first place requires.

 

[Maurice]

You're right about it looking like oak, its looks very much like well aged oak because of the black grain.
Cagey your words of wisdom make sense about being patient on finishing, just getting impatient is all. Want to play it.
Also wanting to start a body made from natural vertical grain bamboo, should be quite the project as I would have to start from a blank laminated from 2 pieces of 7/8" bamboo. Pics shows roasted and natural colored vertical grain bamboo.
thanks for the feedback

 

[BroccoliRob]

That looks awesome! If you want it just less shiny the 0000 wool should do that right? But I like that shine. The shine on it it had right now.

 

[TBurst Std]

I’ve come to the conclusion:
When you’re at the finishing stages, start another build (or something else). You need distraction while you wait.

 

[Strat Avenger]

Looks gorgeous. Did uou use a grain filler?

 

[Rick]

Between coats for tru-oil 4 hours is enough, though I usually leave 12.  As to fully cure, to hard, say 3 months.  I know that sounds long, but that's my experience.  It doesn't stop my from playing it.