Monterey Pop

Sorry for the lapse in blogs.
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So I've got a couple projects going, but sine I've yet to get a different job, the expenditures are keeping reigned in. Therefore, my current project is a refinish of an existing squire strat I had lying around. Its all repainted and clear coated, but now I've got to wait a month before I wet sand it and buff it to gloss and add the hardware and neck. Here's what I started out with.
Its a cheap strat-type body and neck, and I'm using it as a practice run on the Monterey Pop strat replica. This is the original guitar that Jimi Hendrix hand painted, presumably with fingernail polish, then lit on fire and continured playing in the middle of Wild Thing at the Monterey Pop festival when he opened for The Who when nobody knew who this Jimi guy was. Suffice to say, people knew who he was after that show.

Here's where its at thus far. I sanded down the neck and refinished with Fender Neck Amber, giving it a more vintage strat from 1960-70s look, and relic'd the back of it for smoother play. The body I stripped using several chemical stippers and then a belt sander and sanding by hand. Suffice to say that I won't be attempting to stip any more Poly-finished guitars any time soon. Once I had it to the bare wood, I primed it a few times and let that dry, then sprayed the red and let that dry, then sprayed the white and let that dry. Then I drew on the artwork with light pencil and made sure I liked it before getting out the acrylic paints and doing Hendrix's doodles and 'love drops.' Once the artwork was done, I shellac'd the paint to keep it protected from the Nitrocellulose clear coat which would have melted it. Once sufficiently shellac'd, I hit it with about a million coats of nitro clear coat to bury the paint. Once the nitro cures (30+days) I'll wetsand it and buff out the body to a shiny gloss. Then add the neck and hardware. Right now its curing, and here's how it turned out.

I know I've got to work on the smoothness of the lines, but I'm not and have never claimed to be a painter. Still I think it turned out considerably better than I had expected it to. I'll have a wrap up post once its finished.