After a few less ambitious projects, I found myself thinking "how hard could it be to build a guitar" sometime ago, and decided to find out. It's been a really rewarding experience, and I'm very happy with the results so far (and the lessons learned from a smorgasbord of mistakes along the way), but am a bit stumped as to how to work my way through the current predicament.
The rear of my GA cutaway is made from bookmatched Tasmanian Sassafras. I'd noticed that it seems to be more sensitive than most to changes in humidity, but hadn't really thought much of it until we had a run of 40deg+ days in the summer. By the end of the few days, what had looked like this:
...now looks like this:
The split is only between the sassafras panels, the internal reinforcing strip along the seam has held everything together really well, so there's no rattles or loose wood inside. However, I'm a bit stumped as to how to repair this flaw. Some tentative pressure with a clamp across the read bout has shown that it's highly unlikely that I can squeeze this gap closed without causing major damage elsewhere.
Ideas that I've had so far are:
1) Pick a good day where the split swells to (nearly) closed, then wick CA glue into the gap and hope for the best
2) Mix up some 2 pack epoxy with fine sanding dust to create an almost wood coloured filler with great bonding strength and squeege into crack, then scrape flush
I'm really cross with myself for not seeing the potential for disaster and mitigating it properly, but what is done is done. I wondered if anyone has come across this sort of problem before, and had any wisdom they could share to help me get this project back on track?
Thanks very much in advance for anything you're willing to share,
Mark
