MIMF

I am building a bass guitar that draws inspiration from the Fender '51 P bass.
Not a copy of the bass, but it has that great country western look and so does knotty pine. So the shape and hardware will be similar to the old fender p bass and the wood and finish similar to the old Gretsch Roundup Guitar from the fifties.

So, want the pine to be amber tint and hopefully with fine checking. Not going for a mirror gloss finish, but semi gloss. Anyway, I have NO experience fnishing and am looking for ideas to achieve this goal. I have included a pic of an old 1st gen fender p bass and an old Gretsch knotty pine roundup guitar.

Any suggestions toward this end is appreciated and I expect to have to modify my goals to achieve them.

So, am going more for the yellow look on the P bass.

Pine will yellow with age and exposure to sunlight. After the final shaping and sanding leave it in the sun for a week or two. A couple coats of orange shellac should give you the color you want.

One alternative to consider would be to use waterborne poly with Honey Amber Transtint dye added to it (about 6-8 drops per quart will give that warm aged pine look). The advantage is a low cost and foam brush application.

EnduroVar urethane varnish is what I am presently using, and they have a semi-gloss version. This gives some amber tone on it's own without adding dye, and you can lightly tint or highlight the wood before adding the finish if you want more color.

The tricky part about using sunshine is getting an even sun tan I have tried this before, and it can work, but it's the UV that does the color change and windows can block the UV. Ideally, hang the parts so the wind can move it around. Local birds found this interesting - and they were not helpful.

Have fun, and practice on scrap

Google: hide glue crackle finish

Great ideas all of them, I don't the hide glue crackle finish will work for me because from what I read it only works on paint, maybe I am missing some information. I want the grain to show thru. I think you can get the effect I want by using nitro and then spraying it with freon, but I don't think I can get a can of freon anymore and tinted urathane varnish would work I think. I have no experience today, but should have soon, but I thank you guys for all the suggestions and hope to get more.

If you put on spray can nitro thick (that means unreasonably many coats) and then chill it, you'll get your checking. I wish I didn't know this.