First entries - apologies to Yorev and Isaac - with my PC down, I missed emails from them both with entries from last month, so I'll kick this month off with them.
Yorev's MK-2
In his own words:
Started as an MK-2, but I had a midcentury aesthetic in mind - I love old neon signs and architecture from that period - solid yellow color, chrome accents (pickup cover at the bridge found on ebay), arrowhead on the headstock, and carefully replicated lettering and stars from an old "Satellite Motel" sign I stumbled across in a forgotten beach town. I had several potential colors in mind, but I picked the yellow as it fit the aesthetic and it just so happens that its the one color of guitar I've never owned, outside of pink. (I actually considered pink for novelty, but it didn't match the theme)
Finish is a synthetic lacquer I tried that was actually pretty easy to work with, though a bit pricey. One surprise was the clearcoat actually containing a small amount of pearl flakes - the resulting light sparkle isnt very prominent, thankfully, but it is visible at times when the guitar is moved against directed light. One surprise was that its quite visible at the sides of the fretboard against the dark rosewood, so I joke that I have "sparkle frets".
Headstock design came about because I really wanted to use that old sign lettering but knew I couldnt paint it. So instead I printed the design on adhesive vinyl, carefully applied it and then clearcoated over it. The sparkle from the clearcoat is fairly obvious there, though in the photo here it kind of looks like dust (grr).
Only kit part I didnt use was the bridge pickup cover, I found a chrome one on Ebay and it matches the hardware and minihum very nicely. And I put straplocks on instead of the included strap buttons, but thats a really minor difference no one would spot.
Final result is a nice vintage low-gain tone, surprisingly bassy at the neck pickup and clear at the bridge. I'm not ruling out the possibility of putting a louder bridge pickup in, but I wont be doing that for another few months at least, if at all.
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