Clear coats are done

    I finished the build coats on the guitar yesterday.  It was still a little cold, but I heated the lacquer up, in a pot of water on the stove.  It's looking very nice.  I'll wait until maybe Wednesday and then sand it flat.  It's supposed to be nice again on Thursday, or Friday, in which case, I can give it one or two more thin coats to melt in the sandpaper scratches.  Then I'll let it hang for a few weeks and polish it.  After that, it's wiring the pickup and fixing it to the finger rest, drilling the hole for the jack, and putting it together.  Here are some pictures.  I'm sorry about the quality.  I took them in the sun with the wind blowing the guitar around.  The color looks a little more yellow than it really is.  Here is another Rumi poem, which I love.

Who gets up early to discover the moment light begins?

Who finds us here circling, bewildered like atoms?

Who comes to a spring thirsty

and sees the moon reflected in it?

Who like Jacob, blind with grief and age,

smells the shirt of his lost son and can see again?
Who lets a bucket down and brings up a flowing prophet?
Or, like Moses, goes for fire and finds what burns inside the sunrise?

Jesus slips into a house to escape enemies
and opens a door to the other world.
Solomon cuts open a fish, and there is a gold ring.
Omar storms in to kill the Prophet and leaves with blessings.
Chase a deer and end up everywhere.
An oyster opens his mouth to swallow one drop.
Now there is a pearl.
A vagrant wanders empty ruins.
Suddenly he is wealthy.

But do not be satisfied with stories,
how things have gone with others.
Unfold your own myth,
without complicated explanations,
so everyone will understand the passage,
We have opened you.

Start walking toward Shams, the teacher, the sun.
Your legs will get heavy and tired.
Then comes a moment of feeling the wings you have grown,
lifting.

     A word about the character Shams in the poem.  He was Rumi's spiritual mentor and good friend.