Hello!
As some/all(?) of you know by now, I recently purchased a vintage nagauta shamisen from the fabulous Amanda 
And it’s arrived, I have it, it’s mine and now I’m compiling a shopping list of things I’ll need to get to bring it back to life (when I get paid.)
Now Kyle, worry not, your book is top of my list. 
Now I know I’ll need a koma, new skins (and stuff to put them on with) and, you know, strings (Ito!) but I’m also looking into stripping down the varnish and redoing it.
It looks like the (oh god my mind has gone blank) neck(!) is a beautiful red colour whilst the dou is more brown.
I’d like to keep the red, and maybe vamp it up if that’s possible, enhance the colour. You know. But I was thinking of maybe making the dou black? Would that be absolute blasphemy?
I have a really cool image (currently in my head, may soon be on paper) of what I want it to look like. But I don’t want it to look like the white-trash version of a shamisen.
Also any tips and tricks as to what varnish to use would be good, currently just browsing the Wickes, B&Q and Wilkinsons stores websites for cool looking colours.
Hope you all had a splendiforous Easter
Alice