Again a great breakfast. Three egg omlette with veggies, bacon, toast, coffee, OJ & jam. Couldn’t finish it all.
Showed the new scrapper to Dave and Lee – It works well.

This really works well


I removed the tape from the guitar binding, then used a scrapper to bring the binding as close as possible to flush with the top and back of the guitar. Later it will be sanded to be perfectly flush.

I also removed the tape from the headstock, then scrapped the binding flush with the top and sanded it. Then I sanded the sides to remove the glue line where the binding meets the headstock. It looks good.

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During a lull in activity, I continued with the pickguard. I scrapped the border splines almost flush with the plastic. Then I sanded it with 80 g and 150 g sandpaper. Kief encouraged me to glue in the MOP & abalone pieces into the pickguard. Black Magic Marker is used to colour the cyanoacetate glue which in turn hides the flaws in the routed cavity. So…. Lots of Black Magic Marker and lots of glue and finally accelerator. Then I sanded the pearl and abalone flush with the plastic. It takes forever – hard on the arm and the back.

Hiding the flaws

Before it was completely sanded Dave had some time available so we pulled the teflon out of the groove. He showed me how to sand the angles on the abalone strip with a drum sander in the dremil. The abalone is inserted in the groove so that black (inferior) side is positioned upwards, so that when it’s sanded flush with the plastic the “good” side of the abalone shows. The strip is “crushed” into the groove so that the pieces conform to the curves. I tried, and couldn’t keep the pieces of the abalone from falling out of the groove, as it’s very shallow.

I asked for help and Dave showed me how to put a few drops of crazy glue on a plasticized piece of cardboard, then to transfer little drops on the shank of a dremil burr to the abalone pieces to tack them in place. This worked much better.
I finished the border by applying lots of crazy glue, black magic marker and accelerator. Then I sanded it smooth. Unfortunately in sanding the tip of the pickguard as well as some other pieces of the spline disappeared, and I felt that the pickguard might have to be scrapped. Not a happy camper at this point !

Opps

As I was leaving that afternoon, Dave interrupted a telephone conversation to say that it could be fixed with a tiny router bit and some more spline. I felt a bit better as I left. The pickguard has occupied a lot of time so far. It has a collie, of which there are three in my house, shepherding two sheep, with some mountains and the moon in the background. Framing the scene is a border of abalone. Bottom line is that it’s taken a lot of time and patience to get it this far, and I’d hate to simply scrap it…