Cool, er  Glossy!   

The clouding issue and lacquer seepage may be a bit of bummer to ya, but gosh, still an impressive and inspiring job Dan. imho

excellent attitude.

 I've attempted makin' cake... wasn't pretty ... 'n barely edible. 

Thanks for the kind words. Like I say, I've learned my lesson and I'm done with lacquer. I'll stick with petroleum-based finishes from now on. I can get a finish that's just as thin as lacquer, but without all the hassles.

It's bridge-gluin' time...

As it comes from the factory, the bridges have a minor recess milled into the bottom. I have no idea what purpose these serve. It could be this gives a little more gluing surface for the epoxy, or it could be their way of roughing up the wood to give the epoxy some tooth.

Regardless, this wouldn't work with the hide glue because, unlike epoxy, hide glue has poor gap-filling capabilities. So, I sanded off the lip so the bottom of the bridge was completely flat. This did thin the bridge slightly, but only about .001". (~1/128")

Here's a look at the underside of a bridge that still has the recess and the CL bridge.

I wanted my bridge to match the color of the TRC, so I painted on some clear butryrate dope. When the dope was wet, it looked pretty good. After it dried, it went back to the color of the bare walnut. Since I couldn't add stain over the dope, I added some burnt sienna and raw umber dry artists pigment to the clear dope to make a dope stain. In the pic, the TRC looks a lot darker, but in real life they're pretty close to the same color. The bridge looks real nice on the guitar.

I glued together some scrap 1/4" marine ply and 1/2" medium balsa to make a bridge clamping caul. I used the balsa, first, because it's easy to carve and second, because I knew it wouldn't dent the carving on the bridge. It's a pretty crude-looking affair, but it works.

I cut out some scrap 1/8" basswood sheet stock to prevent the clamps from scratching/denting the finish.

I used some binding tape to keep the bridge plate clamping plate in place. Because the hide glue has such a short working time, I wanted to make sure I didn't have to mess around with keeping this plate aligned while putting the clamps in place.

I did a dry run to get the clamps preset and to practice which order they would be applied.

To increase the working time of the glue, I preheated the gluing surfaces of the bridge and top wood with my heat gun.

The bridge is glued and clamped and I got a nice squeeze-out of glue. I wiped this up with a moist paper towel and left the clamps in place for about 4 hours to let the glue harden. Once I took the clamps off I checked the neck geometry and it's still perfect with the top of the frets about 1/16" above the top of the bridge.

The next job is drilling the hole for the pre-amp wire and glue the rosette into place. Pics to follow.

I was always intrigued by these as well. Based on the design of a medieval Lute. In Japan they actually had three models. but these are probably just as difficult to find (I'm also trying to find a Tama TG-190).

Final 'construction' steps:

Drill the bridge for the pick-up wire. First, mark the location.

Transfer the location to the bridge caul. The idea is that I'm going to use the bridge plate clamping plate as a drill backing so I don't blow out the rosewood bridge plate.

Use a spade bit to make a 9/16" hole which will be big enough to allow me to see the pick-up wire location once the bridge caul is clamped into place.

Hole is drilled. It needed a little sanding to enlarge it enough to allow the plug to pass through.

I used 5-minute epoxy out of a pre-mix nozzle to glue the rosette into place.

As of now, the guitar is pretty much done. I'm going to let the glue(s) dry until tomorrow, then install all the hardware and string it up. I can hardly wait. Pics to follow.

Here's a couple of pics of the DY92.

The 1619 sure looks great!  D'ya get them strings on it yet?

ps - that DY92 is neat, all Renaissance looking. But to really show it off, ya gotta play it backwards  ...I ain't that good!!  

You betcha! Got it strung up this afternoon. I was busy all morning and couldn't wait to get home to get the strings on and see how it sounds.

In short, I'm very, very happy with it. The top wood and brace pattern are everything I'd hoped. It's bright, loud and has terrific sustain on all six strings. Plus, it looks real neat, too!

Here's the finished product.

Man! That is beautiful Dan. You should be very proud of what you created. Pretty doggone impressive! I wished I could play it to hear what she has to say. Thanks for sharing your journey with us. 

+1!!!