Bizman62

Acetone melts the binding material to a mess that sticks to wood like glue. As you've already heard, it can be used for filling gaps which -when you think about it - involves attaching a piece of binding on the guitar. The main difference is the length used. All that said, there's several plastic materials used for binding. I've heard of acetate, ABS and PVC. They all may melt to acetone but I'm not 100% sure. There's also plastics like HDPE that don't melt, otherwise there would be no caps on the acetone bottles! So a little testing is recommendable before the actual binding.

Ouch! There's only one cure I know of and that's to reduce the overall volume by sanding a mil off... Unless, and this is not guaranteed to work, you can wash the surface with turpentine, hoping to make the colour more even? Caution! This is just a wild idea, never tested, based on someone telling how they wash a figured stained surface with alcohol or other solvent instead of sanding.

Anodizing might be an option... Doing at home may not be possible due to the chemicals used not being available for mere mortals but you may find a service provider.

Your weeds sure add a nice twist to the strictness of the red and black!

Welcome! It pretty much depends on what you want from your finish. Crimson high build oil is a good choice for about any wood but as with any oils it will take forever to fill coarse grain and deep pores. As each piece of the same species can differ, look at your limba or even better make a test piece. Instead of Crimson oil you can also use Tung oil or similar wipe on oil-poly mixes - or even mix it by yourself! The basic recipe is boiled linseed oil, turpentine and oil based lacquer, 1 part each. For faster drying increase the turps, for faster buildup add more lacquer.

Me too! That's a homage to the original while still being your very own.

I've read that Terry Pratchett couldn't leave his books, there was always something to improve or add. The publisher almost literally had to steal the manuscripts to get something printed and published. I believe that served us readers better than waiting until his death to get one single almost perfect novel out.

Now that you said it... The human eye likes symmetry and that one can be seen like the lower half is just flipped and turned like the figures on playing cards. A hair in any direction would not have created that illusion as the proportions would have been different. Then again, that looks totally natural as well, seaweed swaying in the subsurface flows can take startling shapes for a second, collapsing back to psychedelic waves.

Had to look for 'Foredom'... Back in the fifties they knew how to make real household machines! In the Big Cookbook of that era there's a bunch of ads on the last pages. One that tickled my imagination as a child was the ad for a food processor with all the bells and whistles a housewife could want - plus a couple of features for the man: A flexible shaft and a palm sized handpiece with a chuck for drill bits and sanding disks. Unfortunately Google has never heard about it so there's no pictures.

@curtisa went more into depth in explaining the scale length math. Regarding the scale template possibly being incorrect, there's a couple of explanations: As you bought it from a reputable british vendor, it can still be stamped wrong, saying 25.5 when it actually is 24.75. Mistakes happen... It is 25.5 and the first notch is for cutting the nut slot instead of the first fret. I've let a luthier cut some fretboards for me with his special tools and the first slot on the boards is for the nut, located an inch from the end of the board for crack safety and versatility. Just a side note: I bought a double sided notched straight edge from Banggood. It's for 24.75 and 25.5 but I couldn't make it match with any of my guitars. At some point I realized that it starts from the second fret! It's a long way from China so there's lots of time for moisture to condensate and seep through any wrapping. Fretboards aren't too expensive in Europe either, Madinter and Maderas Barber in Spain will deliver faster than any Chinese shops. That said, it's good practice to let any wood acclimatise in a well ventilated place before using. Even more so if it has been wrapped into plastic for a long transport. Finally, if you order a hand made guitar from a luthier it can easily take at least a year, easily two or three years until you get the finalized product. There's so many stages where the project just sits due to settling or drying - starting from choosing the woods and letting them acclimatise to the workshop environment to see if they start to warp. That alone can take months!

Congratulations for a win well earned!

I had to google for ACM boards... The sandwiched idea is similar but the polypropylene version used a much thinner sheet of polypropylene in the middle. It actually looked like 3 ply aircraft plywood, the total thickness being about 1.5 mm or 1/16". The laptop stands were imported, not my invention. By searching I think I found the very product on Ebay, the name Hylite for the material rings a bell and is similar. It was almost twenty years ago...

Ooh this is going to be so exciting!

Hmm... 2x324 mm should be 25.5" but if it doesn't match with the template... Can you check the fretboards against a guitar? The Chinese don't always understand the difference between 24,75 and 25.5", they often tend to copy the descriptions from another product. Another thing that popped into my mind is how the nut has been marked: Are you measuring from the end or does the first slot actually mark the nut location to suit various thicknesses of nuts? If the frets are unmarked that might be the issue. A photo might help! If you can straighten the bow against the neck with the fingers of one hand gluing and clamping should take care of the issue. You say that they were wrapped for months which may have caused the warping because of humidity not having been able to stabilize. Put a few pencils or other slats on a flat tabletop, lay the fretboards on them, line another set of slats on the fretboards and lay a heavy board on top. Let them acclimatize for a couple of weeks, ensuring good airflow on both sides, and see if the problem goes away. If not, you can try laying a damp towel on the cupped side for a while to see if it helps.

Not steel and wood, though? Back in the day I tried to sell laptop stands made out of a polypropylene sheet laminated between two aluminium sheets. An interesting product but it didn't sell. The material was actually more interesting...

Thanks, your explanation makes sense. I didn't think about strength that much, only in the meaning that he told that his works didn't split which usually is the issue with green wood especially if you just cut a disk and turn it into a plate or bowl. Also I guess (just guess) that there's different levels of disintegration depending on how long the fungi have done their thing. As far as I remember he mentioned that the wood had not even changed colour yet or drawn the fancy black lines so most likely there wasn't too much weakening involved at that point.

To me that looks like you've sprayed a little too far away, which has enabled the lacquer droplets to partially dry before hitting the surface. Spraying is a dark art, the unholy trinity of temperature, thinner and distance. A change in one requires some testing to get the other two right. Humidity, ventilation and air pressure add complexity to the formula... If it's cold, the lacquer is stiff so you need to add thinner for an even flow and a short enough drying time to prevent runs, and then find the right distance to keep the lacquer liquid until it hits the surface If it's hot, the lacquer is more liquid and will dry faster so less thinner is needed. Again you'll have to find the optimal distance. If the shooting pressure is low, the droplets run slower allowing them to dry during the travel. Again, test. Regarding sanding, I've always sanded lacquer wet since it both seems to be smoother and keep the dust out of my lungs. Use a block on flat surfaces and be extra careful not to sand through the edges. Use no pressure at all, the weight of the block is plenty enough, also flush the paper and wipe the slurry often. My choice to start with might be 600 grit, 400 might be too aggressive and 800 too slow which could make you use too much force, causing the abrasive slurry lumps make deep scratches. Your aim is just to knock the tops off of those micro lumps. If you manage to level the surface to a satin matte you're golden.

Supposedly the rear cover will add yet another colourful element to the palette, or then not? I definitely like that you've not copied the cubistic theme to your crayon. I find that similar to that there's round, triangular, square, hexagonal and other shaped crayons which all can be used to create the same style of art.

Looking at the ART made me think about the Cthulhu mythology (again) where unnamed figures start creeping from the dark depths.

I wouldn't use that phrase until you utterly fail for our amusement. Which I hope won't happen. We have a one word translation for Schadenfreude. I've always wondered if that's something that native English speakers never feel! A primitive Fenno-German state of mind that the Brit-'Muricans sitting on a higher branch of the Tree of Civilization have no personal experience of?? Then again, the latter also don't seem to need to put their smaller children somewhere outside home during the working hours, hence Kindergarten. Either one of the parents doesn't have to work or if both do, they can afford a nanny - which after Brexit may have become too expensive as the au-pairs have to be paid some serious money. Maybe that will bring a new word to the English language? Infantinarium? Kiddygarden? Childjail?

Those, or peeling the copper tape off the hole. Wood is insulating as such.

I know! That's why I chose a short video instead of a couple of others where he digresses for an hour...

Just for better understanding why, here's a half cut sketch looking from the cavity:

Ammonia. For once a short Crimson video:

Sometimes it pays to be a simpleton...