Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello, this is my first post, before I get started I want to thank you all for allowing me to be part of your community, I am new to lutherie and sometimes these forums can answer more questions for me than any lutherie school could(and at fractions of the price!). So here we go, I'll try not to flood the forums with too much of my nonsense newbie questions and stick to the important stuff, Thank you!

Well it seems while routing the outside edges of this strat body, my router body slipped a little bit in the base(stupid me didnt tighten it throroughly once i had it where i wanted it), to the point where the guide bearing was below the table surface causing a gouge in the body and my template(luckily not my master template, i was smart enough to make a copy). My immediate reaction was everybody's favorite, BONDO!!!! I remember seeing that bondo actually makes a product specifically for wood, and i did a little research on it, but rather than rush out to the store i thought i'd try here first and see if anybody had any experience working with this wood bondo or if there are any other better options out there(and please don't just tell me to scrap it and start over). thanks again folks!

I tried uploading the pic i took on my phone and its telling me the file size is too big, anyone know how i can downsize it/compress it/convert it? is there some freeware for that? anyways let me know if you wanna see the pic and i'll send it to you. the gouge is about an eighth of an inch deep and the deep, the roundover would probably cover it up but i need a good reference surface first to run the bearing on the roundover bit along.

Welcome to the forum (and your first Oops). How are you planning to finish your guitar (ie a clear or transparent finish that will show the wood, an opaque finish that will hide it, something in between like a sunburst)? If you plan an opaque finish then honestly any wood filler should work fine, most of the time you will be using some sort of auto finish and as you know, they fill and prime irregularities in body work all the time).

If you want to show off the wood one possibility might be to simply make that part of the guitar a little smaller - shift your templates, route and shape the body as required. I just finished a tele and the wood had a big knot at the base end, my guitar is now about a half inch shorter than a standard tele.

Another possibility, but this gets really tricky, is to make an insert of the same kind of wood and fill the flaw. You may have to chisel it out and it will be almost impossible to hide, but might work OK. This guitar had a router bobble below the binding at the very end of the cutaway - I grafted a piece of maple into the flaw and of course I see it every time I play it but most people don't.



As far as uploading pictures, I can't help. I host mine a Photobucket and it seems to take care of the sizing automatically.

I'll throw in my two cents - with a caveat that I've only made ten guitars. Others here are professionals. I am not, but I do have a point of view on getting through that first (and second, and third,etc.) build. Unless you're extremely lucky, this won't be your last oops on this guitar. My suggestion would be to embrace it and use it as an opportunity to get a bit creative. You could make an unusual inlay, turning it into a design feature. I wouldn't use bondo or something like that. That will be an obvious fill - and can't possibly look good. I'd go with a wooden inlay or another inlay and keep it organic.

Best of luck - have fun!

Bummer.
I would cut out a pocket of a convenient size and make a matching piece out of the waste wood from the body, or some other wood that's a close match if you don't have any of the original wood left. This would be a much better option than something like Bondo which will continue to shrink over time. I'm assuming the body is going to be painted. If you do a good job of matching and fitting the plug however you might even be able to get away with a dark sun burst.
Good luck and know that this type of thing happens to us all from time to time.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Chris as far as pictures go I take pictures with my iPhone and use a free app called "Resize Image" from the App Store. I resize all my pics to a max of about 750. As far as oops go trying to get a perfect match doesn't usually work, it only draws your attention to the mistake. Maybe instead make it something else. I had a router gouge on my latest acoustic. I used the opportunity to do an inlay to cover the spot and then did a matching one ate the other end to provide symmetry.

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Having fun learning every day.

Thanks for all the advice folks. I was planning on doing a very dark sunburst so i wouldn't be worried about it showing through, that is, unless it shrank which i've heard bondo can do over time. But seeing as how my wife surprise-picked me up some bondo from the store yesterday and i don't wanna hurt her feelings i'm gonna try the bondo to repair the mdf template but i'm gonna use a piece of alder scrap i have from cutting the body out and inlay a piece. something else i realized is its right where the belly contour goes, so between that and the roundover, most of this inlay is gonna get tooled out, but i still need that flat spot to run the roundover bearing along. as far as pics, i've been considering a photobucket for some time now so that may be the way i go. Appreciate all the help! Thanks again!

I had some chip out and a resulting router gouge during routing this back. So, to hide it, I routed further to put in zebra radial purfling. Made it better than orginally planned.

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Steve Sollod (pronounced sorta like "Solid")
www.swiftcreekguitars.com