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What a cool project Diane. You are doing amazing things with this guitar. Beautiful top purfling. Is it abalone and MOP?

What an incredible project. I've noticed one of your hidden skills is finding these things in the 1st place.

Kevin Sjostrand wrote: ↑Fri Apr 22, 2022 1:56 pm What a cool project Diane. You are doing amazing things with this guitar. Beautiful top purfling. Is it abalone and MOP?

It looks almost like awabi, aka, white abalone. It doesn't have any of the layers of abalone, but all of the color. I was trying to figure it out myself.

You can polish abalone at a slight angle, so as to get between the layers, which reveals colors without the layering, like you see in the purfling. It's some kind of abalone.

The archtop is done, with the exception of adjusting the action at the bridge and applying more shellac to the neck.

I ended up replacing the end graft with a piece of pearlized nitrocellulose that I had sitting in the shop. The original was very off center to the left, not to mention the 6 out of place screwholes. The neck is 1/16" to the right of center at the bottom of the guitar. When placing the tailpiece, it was a glaring. I routed the depth of the new graft, and removed the old tailpiece. The new piece went right in. It's centered properly.

I taped the new selmer tailpiece in place and marked the center top screw hole. After screwing in the screw, I strung strings 1 and 6. I adjusted the cant of the tailpiece, so that the strings were spaced properly from the edge of the fretboard. From there, I marked the other 2 tailpiece screw holes, and screwed the tailpiece into place. I was delighted to see that it was level with the edge of the tip, meaning that the neck was set properly.

I made a new bridge out of Brazilian rosewood, with a bone nut.

After stringing the guitar and tuning, the neck leaned forward, as expected. I had glued the original fretboard extension support, as was used. The extension didn't budge. Lol.

It should have flexed a little, to allow for that forward bend. I ended up with a heck of a dip between frets 14 and 20. I almost never glue the support to the fretboard. Now I know why. I used my small Japanese dovetail saw to cut away the extension from the bottom of the fretboard to fret 16. I was going to cut off the extension at this point, but saw the gap left from sawing, so I tuned the guitar again.

The dip was 95% gone. I think I'll just take off the end of the support. This left my strings ridiculously high, so I'll adjust the saddle after I get done adjusting the extension.

My shoulder stopped me for the day at this point, frustrating because I'm so close to being completely done. I've cleaned up the bindings and replaced some purfling after taking these photos.

A piece of red leather sits between the top and tailpiece, protecting the top.

Some photos: