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Well it's been a long time coming for me to have shop time. After a year of "life" I'm now able to get some regular shop time in.

I was chatting with Hesh last night and he asked for some pictures of my progress, so here ya go bud.

The body of this guitar has been in its current state for over 1 year now with nothing else being done on it. Over the past few weeks, I've gotten the neck to where it is and made the fret board which is ready to be glued to the neck (I'll be using epoxy as per some of the recent discussions of the merritts of it) so I'm excitted about all this. I've got about 4 hours or so before it will be ready for finish and I'm thinking of doing a french polish shellac on the body and danish oil over epoxy for the neck.

I do have one question though if you all don't mind. When I cut the binding channels, the curly maple chipped out in several spots. The chip outs are pretty small, but I need to know how to fill them. Sawdust and any type of glue miss colors maple really bad so that's out. I was thinking of using epoxy to fill them but I'm not totally sure. These chip out's are about 1/16" in size and making a bunch of little pieces of solid maple might not work to well. I'll post a picutre of the chip out's last.

Ok here's where this guitar is at.













And here's the chip out picture

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"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

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Bummer on the chip-outs, Rod, but other than that it is looking great.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Brilliant, Rod!! Neat, clean work...very tasteful.

I like the choice of woods for this one- and that rosette really looks in place with the top and back's tone (colourwise )

Hey Rod;
Nice lookin' guitar! Love the rosette.
I have tried to do small repairs on Maple & the glue line has been really obvious, each time. If that were my guitar. I'd try to fill the divots with Epoxy finishing resin. If you were using nitro or poly finish I'd recommend using the finish to fill the chipouts. They look pretty tiny & probably won't show unless you are looking for them.
Good Luck Eh?

Rod my friend she looks great!!!!

Other than the ugly capos in the first pic I think that you are going to have a stunning geetar there.

As for the chips I think you already know the solution, use actual matched pieces of the maple and glue in and sand back. That is probably the best that you could do IMHO. And it is likely that you could make it not show and be forever forgotten too.

Beautiful guitar bro!!!

What a great looking guitar, Rod! I remember when you posted pictures of the bent sides after you finished your bender.

Looks great, Rod! Glad you're back in the shop.

If you go the epoxy filler route, you might want to make sure the extra thickness if epoxy in the divits doesn't create too much color.

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now known around here as Pat Foster
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

I really like this guitar Rod !! The shape, the maple,the neck,headstock shape, and especially the rosette is very nice! I wish I had some good advice on the maple chips . I know how glued in chips tend to show because of the glue darkening when dry. I would practice on scrap maple until you find the best looking results. There must be someone out there who has patched maple
successfully ! invisibly that is...

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Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

Looks really good Rod!
On the chip out try CA if they're small (try on scrap first). Put some shellac down, then some CA and the shellac over that. It should blend pretty well.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Hi Rod,
I had a quilted sapelle do that on th back . In the future it might be worth the effort to use a gramil first! Anyone have one they'll sell to me?

Thanks for the kudos folks, I've really enjoyed my recent shop time and I'm also really looking forward to getting this guitar done (I've got 4 more waiting to be built after this one) and strung up. I'll try and get a sound file up when it's all done.

For those that mentioned it, I love the rosette too. I think it's my favorite part of the guitar (so far anyway).

As far as the chip outs go, I'm leaning toward filling with epoxy, but I like the idea of filling with med visc CA after sealing with shellac (thanks Jim). There are about 8 little chip out and making little pieces of maple about 1/16" - 1/8" long at most would be very tedious and I'm afraid that the glue line just won't hide well. I'll try it on scrap each of the three ways and see which method wins. At the end of the day I don't think they will really be noticeable by 99% of those who see the guitar so maybe it just won't matter. I'd like to get them as invisible as possible of course so we'll see what happens.

I'd like to get this guitar all finished by the middle of March, I'm hoping the french polish goes well

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"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

Rod,
Nice looking guitar. I love maple.
The chipout you circled looks to be located in a dark curl, so with a little fill work it probably won't be obvious at all.
And, here's another vote for experimenting on scrap.
You'll know soon enough what's going to work, and what wont.

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Great looker Rod!

I'd try and sliver some in on some scrap first then see what happens! I have a feeling it will fill easier than you think.

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Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)

Rod,

It's looking good - one of my favourite wood combinations. I'm looking forward to seeing how it sounds. Todd Stock did an amazing job of a repair on curly maple binding and ended up with no visible glue line at all (is that thesame as VPL? ) and maybe he can chip in here (pardon the pun). Did you find out why you got the chip-outs in the first place? I only ask as if you are confident that chip-outs won't re-occur then another option is to get some sligtly deeper bindings and re-route new bindings/purflings - it's quite a deep body so I don't think that wide bindings will look out of place. You probably didn't want to hear that option though.

Whatever you do it will be good learning - remember grasshopper, it's as much about the journey as the arriving

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Looking good Rod. Keep up posted on the progress.

John

I love it Rod...it will look stunning once finished.

What's even better is to see you back in the shop! Have fun, Bro!!!

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

Lookin good Rob!

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

Rod, she looks awesome dude! Nice to see you back in the shop as well! Feels great, doesn't it???

As for the chip-outs... Good luck bro!

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

She's going to be a looking when you are done. And I know she'll have a sweet voice to go with her good looks.

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Aoibeann