Official Luthiers Forum!

As I write this, I am looking at six guitars I have made over the years. There is something wrong with all of them. That's why I have to get off this computer and build myself another one!

I agree with Steve, move on. Mistakes are how we learn what not to do, and occasionally we need visual reminders.

Bob

I looked at your channels. All I could figure was you were using inappropriate bits (or dull ones), maybe a Dremel (bearing runout), and perhaps a poorly centered jig. If you want to improve here, and invest, you can easily overcome all of this for maybe $300 in tooling?

I had used a popsicle stick circle cutter to score the inside and outside of the channel and a chisel to excavate it. I definitely need to continue to hone my hand tool skills, but no power tools were used for this operation.

I think moving on is good advice but at the same time it would not be too difficult to just inlay something there like the frog or butterfly idea and you can chalk that up to yet another learning experience too.

I'm tellin' ya, it's gonna drive you insane every time you look at it

Having said that I am a big proponent of the 'move on' philosophy. I lived it myself having built at least ten guitars before I had one that had an acceptable fit and finish and even then it's still a constant struggle. If I had dinged the back or sides or anything internal I'd move on but that is the very focal point of the guitar and the part that gets the most attention. I'm not advocating that you remove the top and start again but just take a couple hours and be creative with something to hide that scar.

That's my two cents coming from a few dollars worth of experience in making mistakes.

There's always the double pick guard too

Ok, that's the other possibility. So common is the use of power tools, it is easy to overlook the possibility one is trying to do it old school. Nothing wrong with that. But you are correct, technique will have to be worked on. Maybe practice on scraps? Until you got it down?

Just intrigued. .whats the popsicle trick.. wasnt that happy with my rosette . Cheers

You use the popsickle stick (or another similarly shaped piece of wood) as a compass. You need a pin or nail in one end, and a cutter of some sort, typically a scalpel or an Exacto blade, in the other. After scoring the inner and outer rings of a rosette, the waste material between is excavated with a either a router, router plane, chisel etc. The compass can be "adjusted" by poking a new hole for the center pin, or you can make it a bit more fancy with a sliding adjustment mechanism, thumb screws etc.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Beginners are often told to fix errors in tops by very carefully inlaying matching wood. I am skeptical that the hand that splintered out that wood is the hand that can fit in an invisible patch.

I re-did everything on my first guitar several times, and it was still full of cosmetic flaws, though the sound was decent. In hindsight I wish I had just accepted the mistakes and moved on, and used the time to build two guitars. I would have learned more.

Structural mistakes need to be fixed, because there's no point in ending up with a guitar that is going to fail. But cosmetic imperfections are different. I've adopted a policy that I will think long and hard about re-doing or fixing any cosmetic flaw more than once. As far as I'm concerned, the most important thing to do with a cosmetic mistake is not to fix it, but to analyze what happened and learn better techniques so I can avoid repeating the same mistake on future guitars.

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Tim Allen
"Never hurry, never rest."

True. But I bet nobody could have convinced you of that at the time. I did the same thing. And so will almost every new builder. Your first guitar is a great laboratory. The real issue is reasonable expectations. John Hall warned me about that on my first. And so I will pass that along. Fit and finish will not be what u expect.

I agree with moving on. There are more challenges ahead that will need your time. However, I wouldn't leave it like that either. A simple solution could be symmetrical pick guards, a black painted top or other such dark colour. The patch is not that bad, try and scrape the finish off, fill the cavities with spruce dust using use hide glue and see if you can match the original colour of the top. Not an easy endeavour.

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Michael Lloyd

“I was born to ignorance, yes, and lesser poverties ...
I was born to privilege that I did not see ... I didn’t know it, but my way was paved” – John Gorka

Ovation and others actually use wood appliques giving a raised effect.

Glue (hide or other) mixed with saw dust used as a putty on light colored wood will make a dark colored mess.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Now there is a suggestion to consider, I don't think I have seen this brought up when questions like this come up. It might be difficult to come up with a design that flows well with the rosette but it would be done. Actually you could compine this with the double pickguard idea and come up with a non-traditional shaped wooden pickguard that flows through the rosette and soundhole and picks back up on the other side over that small bit of bad soundboard. Try to find a shape and wood that will compliment the rosette.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.