Monday, May 23, 2011, was Victoria day – a holiday in Canada and an opportunity for Canadians to travel south, and shop in the United States. Many people do. It didn’t dawn on me all that much, because being retired means you don’t have to go to a job on a regular basis, therefore holidays aren’t quite as anticipated.

When I had left for home the last time, the guitar had been sprayed with a coat of lacquer and was awaiting several more coats. I was to come back after approximately nine coats had produced a solid base, and cured. I would sand the guitar, then go home for a week while some finishing coats were applied. So I was expecting to simply stay for one day, sand the guitar body and neck, and leave for home.
Unbeknownst to me the guitar had been sanded in the interim, by Lee, sprayed, and was now ready for final sanding and assembly. This would take a minimum of two days and maybe three. However even though I could only stay the one day, a lot got done, and I can see now that my original time estimates were somewhat optimistic.

The day started well with a good breakfast at the Park Street Inn. When I arrived at the shop, the guitar body was quite shiny and looking for some sanding. So was the neck. So the first task was to sand with 400g.

The next step was to drill the holes in the headstock for the tuners, Dave supplied a template to locate and mark the exact positions for the six holes, a backing plate was taped to the headstock to prevent tear out, and I drilled the holes using the drill press.

Another task was to cut out a notch in the guitar body to accept the neck, so that measurements could be made as to the length of the heel. This was done by Dave, and the neck heel was fitted, marked, and trimmed to size on a milling machine. Then the heel plate that I had previously inlaid was glued in place and trimmed.

The neck was then sprayed with two more coats of lacquer to hide a tiny, tiny, spot where I had previously sanded through.
Finally, more finish sanding was done on the body. At the end of the day I had sanded the top and back with 600g, then 1000g wet sandpaper and the sides had been sanded up to 600g. A good day’s work.

On the way home I quickly realized that it was indeed Victoria day – it took me 1¼ hours to get through customs due to the high volume of traffic !