Yeah Mike, I bought it unfinished. Purposely got ash coz I love the grain & it stains really well. I even do this staining now on any cab I build if the ply is nice, also I suck at tolexing lol.
I love it but wish I'd got a 6 string version as I'm struggling with chord fingering on this my first (& last) 7 string. I mainly want it for heavy rhythm work & could just take the high E string off (tuned B in this case) but I know the look of a guitar missing a string will bug me.