More finishing.....

Not a whole lot of excitement to report. This is the boring part of building, spraying finish, scratch sanding, and waiting. I got 4 coats of lacquer on yesterday, and did a fine sanding today and will spray 4 more coats on it tomorrow. I did have one small issue to deal with. While I was sanding, I noticed that the top had shrunk just at little. The way I noticed this was that the center seam looked much more visible. When I held the guitar into the light so I could get a reflection over the top, I noticed the finish had sunken along a section about 4" long starting at the tail end. The seam was opening up a hair, not enough to break the glue line but enough to see. I decided to mask the section off and force some LMI white glue into the space. The RH in my shop is right around 40% , so the humidity in the shop isn't the problem. I suspect that the problem is that I had filled the body with paper towels and put a piece of cardboard in the sound hole. My theory is that the towels are actually sucking the moisture out of the wood causing it to shrink. The temps have been high, but I don't think they are high enough to cause the wood to shrink. I pulled all the towels out and hung the damp rags inside the body for tonight. Hopefully that will help re-humidify the top and help close that little gap. The one issue I have had since the beginning of this build has been the center seam on the top. The seam is very visible from the tail to about 1/2 way to the sound hole. It looks like the wood got dirty somehow in that seam but I don't know how that could have happened. I was extremely careful when I joined them to make sure that no dust got on the wood while gluing. Oh well, I guess I will call that character!

I was hoping to start building my side bending form and side molds this weekend for my next build, a small jumbo, but my plans still have not arrived from OLF. I am a bit disappointed that I ordered the plans 3 weeks ago now and they still aren't here. First the plans were backordered, then it looks like the first set was lost in the mail. They re-mailed a new set on Tues. but they haven't shown up yet. Maybe they will be in Saturdays mail. If not, the mail doesn't come until next Tuesday. Don't get me wrong, the guys at run the boards, and ship the plans have been very friendly and helpful, but that still doesn't help me when I had planned to make these molds over the 3 day holiday weekend. Oh well, I suppose they will get here some day, and like my Sunday school teachers always told me, patience is a virtue!

With summer rolling in, the temps in my shop have been getting up to the point of very uncomfortable. Yesterday when I was spraying, it was 98f degrees in my shop. That is just too hot, and the heat of summer isn't even here yet. Today when I was up in the city, I sprung for a small window AC unit to put in the window directly in front of my work table. It isn't a huge unit, but it is big enough to blow cool air over me when I am working and that will make things a lot nicer when the heat of summer kicks in. My shop you might remember is a second floor space of a 100+ year old non-insulated barn. I insulated my shop when I built it, but the rest is not so it gets sweltering hot up there. Over the last few years there have been several days where it is over 120 f degrees up there, and that is just crazy to work in. If you have ever tried to go into your attic during the dog days of summer, you know what I am talking about. There are times that I can feel a 30 degree difference from the first floor to the second floor. It feels like I am walking into a furnace when I climb the stairs. I am hoping that I can get the temps down a bit this summer so I can work up there during the heat of the summer.

One day when I hit the lottery, I will be able to build a new fully insulated, heated, air conditioned and humidity controlled shop building. Until then......