so, I stripped the veneer off and found a pretty nice pattern underneath. I ended up using 3 coats of the Cherry Red Colortone, followed by a coat of Black Colortone diluted to about 20% - just to darken the red a bit. I must say, I much prefer working with spirit based stains - water based stains seem very patchy and hard to get looking good. The photo makes it look worse than it is - the stain came out pretty well after a few coats.
The sides, back and neck were all finished with Feast Watson Mahogany diluted to 30%, then a FW Walnut (30%) over the top. Came out as a bronze finish which I really like. On the Headstock, I overlayed that with a 100% Mahogany coat to get it close to black.
The photo is after the first clear coat of Polyurethane:
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