Drak

I wouldn't necessarily go that far, more like I was in the neighborhood and figured I'd pop my head in the front door to see how all the fella's are doin. Looks like you're killin' it to me, you've come a long way glasshoppah, you should be quite proud of what mad beauty you have released into the world.

Congrats K, killer work.

I use CA glue pretty much all the time now and have for years...but you probably already know that. No matter what type of filler you decide on, what I'm curious of is what kind of backer you're using to sand your filler back. If you're doing flat topped guitars (guessing, don't know for sure), then as long as you use a really hard piece of wood like a chunk of Rosewood, maybe Maple, something like that to back your sandpaper on, it shouldn't matter if your filler is harder than the wood. I level super-soft spalt that's been filled with CA glue that way, so I certainly know about the hard filler/soft wood syndrome, but a very rigid, dead flat, and unyielding backer woodblock usually does the trick, and if there are any inconsistencies left, they're usually very minor and addressed in the finish process. And if it's close but not quite, try either a larger sanding block or a finer grade of sandpaper, or both.

It's still sitting here almost done, like 20 other almost-finished projects, haha! Yes, the first coat of whatever type of finish you're using seals the pores of the wood up against any following coats and at that point, the wood is sealed. There is no special product that seals wood pores better than another, it's just the first coat of whatever it may happen to be. The primary purpose of sanding sealer (which I think is a little silly myself, but others quite like it), is to make sanding easier by adding soap to the lacquer, which, btw, makes the laquer softer overall if used to excessive amounts. That's it. I myself never found straight-up lacquer that hard to sand, so I never use it. Remember if you're going to wipe the whole surface with CA to fill up the soft spots AND you're going to dye it that you really need to sand it back really well so you don't get blobby spots where the dye couldn't get through the CA glue and get straight to the wood, which it needs to do. Sweet build, I love it.

This is a Buckeye Burl I did a few years ago. Buckeye comes in various natural colors due to the drying/spalting process, this one was one of the 'blue/grey-ish' ones, where yours is a more natural Buckeye. I did dye this, but it really wasn't a heavy dye, I just slightly augmented/enhanced the natural color of it, then once I had it clearcoated and sanded flat, I shot a light edgeburst color coat on it, I'm not sure if this shot was taken before or after the shader coat, I think this was before the edge-burst, it was done really lightly tho. The dye really was just to lightly enhance the natural color of what was already there, I didn't try to totally do a 'left turn Clyde' and radically change it's natural color. Those big cat's eyes were hollow spots filled with pigmented 2-part epoxy. Following your process so far, the use of sanding sealer would be an unnecessary step. Yours looks really fine so far!

Fantastic pic series! I delved deeply into German archtops for awhile a few years ago, they really are a family of guitars all unto themselves with a rich history and heritage all their own. It started when I bought an Ovation Thunderhead body off of eBay, and I started researching the history of that particular guitar series backwards in time which led me to the Ovation/Hofner connection, then I just kept going backwards. The Ovation Thunderhead series share a lot of common traits to your Hofner, I have a pic series somewhat similar to yours for the rebuild I'm doing on that one and I noticed several similarities between yours and mine. This is a great website to see what the German builders brought to the table. http://jazzgitarren.k-server.org/menu.html Beautiful renovation job Swede!

Yes I did use the scrollsaw to do intricate cutouts, that's the primary reason I bought it in the first place, it just so happened that the one I bought was strong enough to cut out bodies as well, but what I was doing with it is sort of very different than what you're doing. What I would typically do is use the natural squiggly-ass edges of bookmatched burl pieces and use their own natural outline as the cutout guideline then inlay them into another piece that was cut at the same time underneath of it, so you would (typically) be cutting 4 pieces double-taped together and stacked simultaneously. Beautiful work John, you should be quite proud, I love the inlays! :D

If I were you, I would take maybe a 8" x 8" scrap piece of your body wood, or whatever you can come up with, and perform all tasks on it before you attempt to do them to the real body. Veneer it, sand it, spray it, smooth it, stain it, everything, ...do to it first. That way, you'll figure out what to do and when to do it as you go...call it OTJ experience. Instead of giving you a single fish (the answer you want), I'm giving you a way to fish for yourself, so you can go to any body of water and know how to catch many fish at any time. Just dive in and get started, just start on the scrap piece first...every time, every function, before doing it to the real thing. Don't you just love that?