Botched Notch: Made mistakes notching the kerning/sides

[jread]

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I was a scientist in a previous life and should know better!
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Nah, this is just one of many guitars you will build if you are anything like the rest of us.

[MaineGeezer]

I've always dealt with the problem by having the binding cover the gaps. Aside from the slight non-elegance of it, I don't think there is any significant drawback to doing it that way.

[phavriluk]

I, too, use the binding to cover the (what gaps?) gaps. I figured the question was about the braces not being firmly seated against the kerfing/sides, which I thought to be of minimal consequence if peace of mind could be restored with shims to fill the gaps.

[Ignatz-77AB]

I want to thank everyone for responding! I've got a lot to think about, but the idea of gluing the braces and top as is and then shimming afterwards has some appeal. One other thought that I had was to essentially laminate a small sliver of rosewood onto the top of some extra kerfing that I have, then trim the kerfing to appropriate size to glue onto the top of the already cut kerfing then basically start over with the cutting. I've got to think about this some more and I'm speaking with John tomorrow who no doubt will have wiser counsel. I had hoped to use hot hide glue (I glued the braces with HHG), but that's out since the joints are not a perfect fit. My one concern with the idea that the depth of cut will be covered by the binding is whether the gaps will create a routing problem when cutting the binding channels.

[jread]

It won't be a problem if you use a router with a bearing bit. The bearing will roll along the side well under that gap. But if it does, just use your eyes and hands and don't let the bit bit deeper into the top. It's not hard to guide a router for that short a distance. Good luck!

[Bob Gleason]

I believe that you are over thinking this. My experience is only with wood bindings and plastic may be different, because Titebond is not going to stick strongly to plastic, but I'll bet that 90% of notches that go all the way through, and most of my top and all of my back braces have always been done intentionally that way, have some gap. I have never had any issues. If the notch is not as deep as the binding, you won't have any trouble. That's my experince with many hundreds of instruments.