UPDATE:
Been abroad visiting family for the last week - so the paint had enough time to dry (I put about two coats of milk paint, one of shellac, and one of TruOil on my friend's steel, and two coat of shellac plus one of TruOil on mine).
Got back this afternoon, bit exhausted after 7 hours of driving - just did a little bit of work today, started with my friend's steel, he's going to be touring in Northern Germany in a few weeks, so I need to finish his steel soon...
Put some self-adhesive felt pads on the back of the steel, to prevent it from slipping on the knees:
Mounted the tuners:
Started working on a nut:
Usually on my steels I just use aluminium L-angle bar; but because of the Multibender I wanted something with less friction; couldn't find an affordable roller nut with wide enough string spacing, so I got the widest Graphtec nut I could find; since it is too low for a steel, I made a composite of aluminium T-bar, with a piece of flat alumium bar on top - to raise the nut a bit more, and to hold down the end of the plastic fretboard; still need to file the nut slots when it is mounted - they are radiused for a regular guitar, need to get them so the tops of the strings sit in a straight line, so you don't need to much bar pressure when playing...
Oh, and I made a paper template for the control plate (no photo).