John.... I knew that burled redwood needed a hard topcoat but, for whatever reason, I thought other variations could be treated like walnut and after further research I see that I may be wrong.....as you pointed out. Drats!
The project Cii arrived today and upon eyeballing it for a few I think that the redwood would be "too much" considering the contrast with the maple/walnut/bubinga. So that leaves me with walnut or maple. The walnut would be nice from a complete makeover aspect but the quilted maple, as has been mirrored by opinions above, is probably the best way to go and likely where I'm heading. After looking over the Cii a bit I waver still on whether I should be so drastic in replacing the body top....the truss rod access routes aren't annoying me as much as I thought they would and the existing wood does have a nice flame/grain pattern.
BUT I'm really hung up on wanting the LK p/u configuration so there isn't much choice but to break out the router/sander.
One last dilemma (for the moment at least) is that my plan all along was to go with a tung oil finish which means stripping the CV. Not an issue except that this Cii happens to have a finished fretboard. I think I'll just go with a chemical stripping and plan on replacing the fretmarkers. I'd hate to mess up the fretwork with a sanding mishap. I'll have to check the Curmudgeon Forum for an experienced opinion as well.
Off to hunt for more quilted maple......
