Okey dokey folks. We're back. I rubbed out the lacquer the past couple of days. Came out quite well, if I say so myself. I've abandoned my efforts at motorizing parts of the finish sanding process and gone back to old fashioned wet sanding by hand up to 1200 grit (CAMI system for you sanding geeks; that's 2000+ for those of you using the P grit system). It just works better for leveling and getting out all the scratches. The hands are more sensitive than a random orbit sander (duh!). But boy, are my arms tired!
The photos are not going to to show accurate color, and everything looks darker than it really is. This is under shop light with reflections of various stuff, especially the white towels on my bench. But here's a few anyway. The neck is just sitting there for looks. I put the bridge on before installing the neck.
Here's the back of the neck and an amorphous blob of plastic that is to become the pickguard. I've been making my own pickguard material from epoxy finishing resin. Basically the same thing John Greven does. It's fun in an alchemical sort of way. Neither neck nor pickguard is as dark as they seem here.
I'll try for some more accurate photos as I move along.