Thanks Trevor, will investigate the gel stains as you suggest, I mean I could just use a lot of available ready to go timber stains, which work fine for a lot of this type of work, which up until now I could just as well do, and I may have to. My next question is the finishes, surface coatings, all my guitars have the same smooth polished surface effect, which is the norm for what I would say 100% of the time. I just want something a little different with a bit of personal pow to it. I have to be very careful here, over funding is not my specialty.