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I recently completed my third guitar just in time for Christmas. This one is a present for my brother. He actually knows he's receiving it tomorrow because we talked through all of the design details, and he bought the wood.

Redwood top, Peruvian Walnut B&S, Sapele neck, Maple binding, Black Walnut headplate, Indian Rosewood rear-headplate, Sitka bracing
Body is french polish, neck is Minwax wipe-on poly

I made a lot of amateur mistakes on this guitar:
The heel broke after I over-torqued the neck bolts. I sawed off the heel and glued-up a new one. This was after I had started carving the neck, so I didn't have many straight or perpendicular edges or corners to use as references while carving the new heel and tenon.
During a late night french polishing session, I used Naphtha instead of Alcohol.
I used General Finishes High Performance Waterbased Polyurethane for my first attempt at the top finish, and I do not recommend brushing this finish on a guitar. It leaves a lot of brush marks and bubble pits, it might be okay to spray. While level sanding the top, I went through the finish to bare wood. This gave me a good excuse to strip the entire top and french polish it.
While cleaning around the perimeter of the bridge after glue-up I made several small yet noticeable scratches in the finish, and I don't have time to fix them.

Speaking of french polish here is the schedule I used:
I went with cheap, readily available materials: Zinsser Seal Coat, Generic Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Denatured Alcohol
Spit Coat, Pore fill with Ebony Timbermate, sand w/ P400, seal coat.
Sessions: 6-8 drops of shellac + 4-5 drops of alcohol per 'section' or whenever I need to re-load, I usually add a drop of oil at the beginning of each session. I divide the top/back into 7 sections: edges, top-right, middle-right, bottom-right, top-left, middle-left, bottom-left. After doing each section individually in fig-eights or circles, I reload and go back and forth the whole surface with the grain. Then with a dry-ish pad, I go in circles over the entire surface. Then I add a couple a drops of alcohol and stiff-off the entire surface. For the sides, I just alternated between methodical circles and back-and-forth's until I feel it is enough. Each session takes about 45 minutes, and I do about 10 sessions in 2 days. I work up the sanding grits as I go through the sessions, and I use olive oil as the lubricant. So I do 10 sessions then sand with 400 grit; I usually get some sand-throughs and empty pores which I drop fill. 10 sessions then 600 grit; 10 sessions, 800 grit; 10 sessions, 1000 grit; 5 sessions, 1500 grit; 5 sessions, 2000 grit, wait a week, 2500 grit, wait a week (preferably more if you have time; I didn't) buff. I used turtle wax premium grade rubbing and polishing compounds, and meguiars show car glaze (all silicone free products) waiting a day between each product. I used old 100% cotton t-shirts as my pad and polishing cloths.

That's a real nice guitar, Mark. I think redwood and walnut are a nice combination, although redwood sort of freaks me out because the stuff I've had is always so soft in the early wood and brittle in the late wood. Doesn't look like you experienced any such problems. I think it's beautiful.
Patrick

Nice looking guitar Marl you should be real proud of your work.

Fred

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Beautifull !

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Sweet! That's a special Christmas present for sure. Well done.

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George :-)

Very impressive! I really like your body shape. Can you tell me where you got the design? Also like your choice in timbers and well executed

Beautiful! Great gift!


Posted using letters to form words, sentences and thoughts.

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PMoMC

Very tasty! Must be nice to have for the holidays

Very nice looking guitar. Great job! Your brother is one lucky guy.

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Mark,
nice piece of work , and special thanks for the detail on your French polish. Just getting ready to finish my first two and I want to try French polish on at least one of them. Merry Christmas.

Thanks for all of the encouraging replies. The body shape comes from a previous post:

http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=33589&hilit=Meng351

When I saw the shape for the first time, I loved it. Kinda like a Taylor GA lower bout with square shoulders.

I also forgot to mention that the fretboard and bridge are west African ebony, and the electronics are k&k pure+prephase.

Looks sweet. Nice clean and simple. Great job.