Hello to all, and a minor catastrophe...

[MattW]

Hi All

Been lurking around the forum for a while now, very much enjoying seeing the awesome guitars you create.

I have been building my first guitar, which has been going OK so far. Last weekend I glued the soundboard onto the sides. That went well, now its starting to be 3D, not 2D anymore .

I then started trimming the soundboard overhang around the edges which was about 1inch, with a sharp ¾ chisel. I had a brain freeze moment and managed to gouge a chunk into the side with the chisel as I slipped off the edge of the soundboard














ARRRGGHHH

To make it worse I had a minor panic attack and glued it up with the titebond original glue with a caul pressing down the flappy bit. Even though it looked OK for some reason it just didn’t glue it.

Any help would be great as I'm not sure how to fix it now...

[Mark McLean]

Hi Matt. Welcome to ANZLF, and to this very addictive hobby! It looks like you are making good progress with Number 1, and the side bending obviously worked out OK. It is a terrible moment when something like that slip happens, but we have all done it and nearly everything is recoverable. That laceration looks like it should glue down with very little long-term scarring. I would have done exactly what you did and glue it back (with Titebond). Why didn't it stick? Could your caul have moved or failed to clamp? Is it a very oily species of wood (can't recognize it from the pics)? You might need to clean it down with some Shellite (aka Naptha) and try again. I presume you are using fairly fresh Titebond and it worked OK for gluing the top - so it is probably not because of bad glue. Any heat/humidity issues at the time you did it? I would clean the wood and try it again. If it still fails you could give it another go with hide glue.
cheers
Mark

[Nick]

Firstly welcome to the forum Matt .
It's the little 'whoops' like these that turn out to be great learning experiences....we've all had them! and occassionally you do something like this and think "Geez that was close to disaster, mustn't do that again!" Then on your next chisel stroke it happens again! . Despite what you might think of this it isn't too bad & probably no worse than some figured woods might do normally anyway after being bent, so don't panic, fortunately it looks like you still have all of the original wood (no chip outs) so it's possible to make this repair darn near invisible depending on how you approach it.
I would try and clean as much of the previous glue out as possible (Titebond doesn't stick to dry Titebond very well), make a couple of cauls shaped to match your side radius very closely (one for the inside & one for the outside), scrap wood is ideal as long as it's wide enough to cover the whole 'flap'. Apply some glue into the flap, lay some greaseproof paper over the flap (or cooking foil, something that the Titebond won't stick to), hold the cauls inside & out ( you may need to roughly tape the inside one in place so that you don't need to be an octopuss while you clamp) & apply a clamp tightly! Leave it to glue up for at least a couple of hours (This guitar lark teaches you that impatience will bite you on your arse everytime!). Once dry, a sand with some 120 grit should take care of any small nibs & make your whoops near invisible.
Others may have a different approach, whichever way you go, good luck with it.

[charangohabsburg]

I've got not much to add which Nick wouldn't have said yet.

Until now, the few Titebond joints that I managed to fail were very similar to this one: small and difficult to clamp. There are several reasons why this can happen:

1. not enough glue or
2. enough glue but clamped-released-clamped-released-clamped, which gets the clue drying before the crack definitively gets closed, or
3. simply not clamped tight enough.

Others may have a different approach,

Right. If you should keep on failing on gluing the chip back, just make a soundport and nobody will notice!
Just kidding.

Happy you didn't manage to have to glue in place a piece of your finger...

Cheers,

[kiwigeo]

Welcome to the forum Matt.

You may already be aware of this but when trimming top overhang with a chisel make sure you're not working into the grain...this is where you usually get splits happening. The same rule applies when trimming with a router.

I usually work out the directions to cut and then draw arrows on the top in pencil so theres no chance of stuffing it up.

Cheers Martin

Post script - didnt read yur post properly and noticed that you gouged side not split top. My advice on trimming top still stands regardless.

To avoid gouging the side try putting a bit of tape on outer edges of chisel blade to prevent the corner digging in if you slip with the chisel...only the middle section of the cutting edge is doing the cutting. I also do this when shaping braces also to prevent digging into the top.

[Nick]

not enough glue

Thanks Marcus I forgot to mention to apply enough glue ( ) that you know you'll get squeeze out when clamped. You want glue on every millimeter of surface. Put glue in there until you think it's enough then put a little more in . You don't want to clamp it up then remove the clamp to see if there is squeeze out, you should be happy that when you do that clamp up there will be squeeze out to clean up once dry.

[MattW]

Thanks for the welcome guys.

Thanks for all the advice!
I’m glad the gouge seems repairable!! The build so far has been a bit precarious, but only minor mistakes until now ( cutting the X braces too short anyone? ) .
The wood for the sides is Tasmanian Blackwood, and doesn’t seem oily. I was chiseling into the waists, and around to each end, so not chipping out the sound board.
I think the issue may have been too little glue, and the caul wasn’t really shaped to match the curve of the sides well enough.
I have just got some Hot Hide Glue for the first time, and just bought some decent CA glue ( loctite), and have the Titebond glue.
Which should I use?

[DennisK]

I much prefer hide glue over any other for this sort of thing. Mainly because it can be re-melted, and does stick to itself, so if it pops back up like this one did, you can just try again immediately. Not sure how well it would stick now that the surfaces aren't totally clean though... in this case I might just try the titebond again, and make sure it stays clamped until it's good and dry. CA seems the most risky, but would probably work fine too if you can get the flap clamped down without fully covering it, so you can wick thin CA into the crack.

Oh, and I've recently discovered that a spokeshave works pretty well for trimming plates Then a violin knife for the last bit in the tight part of the waist.

Bracing looks plenty tall to me, except for maybe the upper X arms... Make sure you cap that X joint too!

[MattW]

Thanks Dennis

The spokeshave's a good idea and I have a Stanley 151, I'll keep that in mind for the back plate.

I have just setup the Hot Wax boiler today for the HHG but haven't had time to fire it up. I agree, the more I think about being able to heat it up again and re stick it if it doesn't work the first time, the more I like the HHG option. Also after Using titebond and a whole lot of clamps to glue the tentellones onto the sides, I think I'll use the HHG for the back ones as well.

Probably end up sticking myself into a blob if I tried the CA so maybe use that for the saddle and nut.

Re the bracing Im not sure what to do here cause I'm using an old piece of WR Cedar for the top, so it may not be as strong as a newer piece given cedar is supposed to age a lot quicker than spruce for example. I've used 3 tone bars instead of 2 though so could probably reduce the height a bit more. Having just put the top onto the sides I can see now the top is pretty rigid, so may be lacking in bass. Its an OM size, so a smallish volume anyway.

[MattW]

So here is the result

I cleaned up the cut as well as I could to get rid of the titebond. The I heated up the area a bit with the heat gun and wedged as much HHG into the slot as possible. For the caul I used a flexible steel 6inch ruler clamped to the curve

here it is glued


and after a sand with 120 grit on a block

[Kim]

Hey Matt, nice work

I fixed up your images so they display by removing the spaces between the [img]imagecode[/img] so the image link starts and ends right between the brackets with no spaces at all.

You can also upload images direct to the ANZLF server which saves any problems down the track should your storage site purge them out or shut down and cause the dreaded red X.

To do this you just need to scroll down the edit window and you will see "browse" button, use that to find the image on your PC. You then use the "Add the file" button to upload the image to this site. Once uploaded the "Place inline" button will appear with the file name you uploaded next to it. Click in the edit pane to put the cursor where want the image to appear, and then click the "Place inline" button and your done.

Cheers

Kim

[charangohabsburg]

That looks good!
After installing the purflings and doing the pore filling it will be difficult to see there has ever been a problem.

[MattW]

Thanks for the help guys it looks like the scar wont be too visible when its got some finish on it.

Thanks for the help with the pics Kim, i couldn't work out why they displayed OK the first post, then not.