SJ is in the curing room.....

Well the SJ got it's final coat of lacquer (I hope!) and it is now hanging in the curing room for the next month. I got a total of 18 coats on it. That might sound like a lot, but they are very thin coats and a fair amount of it will get sanded off. The body still rings like a bell (okay a high pitched drum!) when I tap it so I am sure I didn't over do it. The pore filling looks like it went well as there are no pores telegraphing through on the body or neck. There are a couple of flaws in the top that didn't show themselves until I had about 10 coats on, or at least I didn't see them until then. One of the abalone ring segments around the soundhole somehow ended up a touch lower than the rest so looking at it with the light reflecting across it shows a curved line. There also is one little spot where a splinter of the top got pulled out while I removed the masking tape at some point, and it wasn't visible until the finish showed it. I also have two spots on the back right at the bottom where I accidentally sanded too far before I put the bindings on creating little 'divots'. I knew these were there and I tried to fill them with pore filler, but it didn't work as well as I had hoped. My plan is to drop fill all of these areas with lacquer this week to build them up level with the surrounding finish. I want them to cure along with the rest of the finish before I start the final sanding. That way I can sand them level with the rest of the finish and it will look right, and not like a repair.

Right now I am waiting for the woods for the twins to acclimate to my shop. I will probably get started this next week with the builds. I made a second OM body mold so I have two to work with. The body shape and size of the 000 plans by Scott Antes is almost identical to the plans for the OM so I am using that. I don't think anyone will notice that the body is 1/16" different than the plans at the two bouts. I was looking a the wood and I have to try and figure out what to do with the necks. The two blanks I got from LMI which are advertised to be 1"x3" are actually 1"x2 1/2" and 1"x2 3/4". Unfortunately my typical peghead is 2 3/4" at the widest part which means one blank is too narrow, and the other is just wide enough as it sits prior to any jointing. I will be contacting LMI about this as every neck blank I have gotten from them in the past has been 3" wide. The narrow blank might be a problem all the way around as it has a slight bow in it that will need planed out, and the neck of the guitar needs to be 2 1/4" at the body. That really isn't much extra wood to work with. Hopefully LMI will help me out with this. The wood looks great (sapele) and it smells amazing, kind of like a spice cake. My shop will smell great when I start working with it.

Sorry, no pictures today. When I get a chance I will take some pictures of the little flaws so you can see what I am talking about.