Well recovery has been attempted and at least it looks like a piece of wood now not a toffee apple (English delicacy of apple dipped in caramelised (burnt) sugar!) Got some Danish oil on it curing, we will see how it turns out. It actually looks a little better than in the photo so hopeful at least. The spalted ash unfortunately has some grain that looks like pencil marks, have to live with that.
I went with my original plan of two tele neck pickups, (the bridge mount raised a few mm) and control panel across the body, (switch will be uppermost when using strap) My reasoning being that the player will have relatively easy access to the controls with his/her bow hand little finger (pinky) due to the upside down technique of bowing the traditional instrument.
The folding aluminium sharks fin with strap button actually works well, when played in the sitting position it folds out of sight. I profiled the back end/ bottom of the body, for lap playing and will fit a rubber anti slip pad on the curve. The neck has been stained with a touch of black and is being oil finished
pic 1 The body hanging/curing
oiling (1).JPG (104.2 KB)
pic 2 The hanging tree, neck in foreground
oiling (4).JPG (87.0 KB)
As I have stated previously this is a make it up as I go project, very much suck it and see, if the concept is feasible then there are a myriad of other ways and means to hopefully improve it