Fingerboard Hole Fills and Top Patches for Guild F-50 Guitar

Since I had drilled five (count 'em) holes into the fingerboard of the F-50 to get the neck off, the whole fingerboard extension is pretty wobbly.  So wobbly, in fact, that it may have just snapped off, and I may have had to glue it back on.  Maybe.  Not telling.

Since it's so wobbly, it occurred to me that I should just fill the holes now, since that will give it some strength.  And since I have to handle the neck a bunch more, this might be a good thing.

So I sanded up a hunk of ebony and got some nice ebony sawdust to use for a fill.

What's that modern-art looking thing, you ask?

That's a neck caul I made when I reglued the fingerboard extension on.  There, I admit it.  At least I got to make a neato caul to support the neck so I could run a clamp around it.

Here we turn those ugly holes into something more attractive.

I gently clamped a caul covered with waxed paper under the area that will be filled.  Then I dumped some of the ebony dust in the holes.

I didn't fill them up all the way - I have some great looking chips from the original drilling that I'll use for the top layer of fill.  But I'll do that after the neck's back on the guitar.

Using the super-duper helpful droppers from Stew-Mac, I drip some CA into the fills.

This is thin CA - it wicks right down into the dust and glues it into a solid mass.

You may recall that I had a heck of a time loosening up the fingerboard extension.  Worst I've ever seen.  Usually they just free right up.

Turns out there was about a half a liter of old glue in the truss rod hole at the end of the neck.  I exaggerate some, but there was a lot of glue there and it was concentrated in a big lump.

In taking the extension off, a lot of spruce came up with it.  Fortunately, it will be easy to repair, and it will be invisible after I'm done.

You can see the pencil marks I made to chisel out two rectangular areas in the top.  I go to work with my 6mm chisel.

The area cleaned up and reasonably level.

The bubbles in the finish to the left?  Ugh.  Another by-product of the neck removal - it makes me sick.  But I can fix that too.  Lacquer is forgiving, thank goodness.

But it's sure ugly now.

But things are looking better already.  I made two spruce patches to level and fill the torn-up area.

I sanded them down - they still protrude about .050 of an inch above the top.  I needed to leave some height to work with to level the whole thing later.

They'll also get trimmed to fit the neck opening.

But first I need to glue them down.

Some hide glue, waxed paper, clamps and a caul do the trick.

Waxed paper: don't get me started!  Even wikipedia calls it "wax paper"!  But it's paper that is impregnated with wax.  That makes it waxED paper, it's not paper MADE of wax!

Geez.  It's the Americans, you know.  They ruined the English language.