I stripped the paint, made the neck even thinner than it was and redid the weathering after listening to my peers on another forum who I respect greatly.
I am "happy" with the end results. Its not perfect and I still feel it lacks something or needs some tweaking but I am happy enough right now to leave it alone until I get more practice at weathering and then consider revisiting it.
I may work on the electronics of this one this weekend instead of the prophecy.
The neck is now 3/4" instead of 7/8" and I added the groove between the neck ring and emitter.
here are the pics. Let me know what you think. I really need better lighting to show the subtle wear effect in the grooves but you can kind of see it in these pics.
click for larger pics.
oh and the pommel is not solid. It is hollow with a thin piece of metal covering the hole. I will probably drill sound holes there.