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Anyone heard from David in awhile??

Kevin

David's health is fine. He's taking a break from lutherie after he flubbed a bit on his oak steel string. His town got hit pretty hard by Isaac. Over 18 inches of rain in a short amount of time. He was without power for a few days but all seems to be back to normal.
-tommy

does he need anything ?

Hey everyone! I'm still alive, Isaac was practically a dud compared to Katrina (I stayed at home through both of them). We did get a lot of water (none in the house) and were without power for about a week (bummer) but all in all it was minimal.
I am in the middle of a hiatus from building guitars but I will get back at it soon. As TB mentioned, I got discouraged when I made a rookie (but I am a rookie) mistake when drilling the holes for the tuners in the head of the oak guitar. The first five went just fine but I must have fallen asleep on the sixth one as when the bit was exiting the head it grabbed the neck from my grip and turned it sideways and now I have a nice beautiful oversized, oval shaped hole in my head (er...the guitar head). It will not be such an easy fix as ya'll are probably thinking, just drill oversize, plug, re-drill, the fact that the head is covered with a veneer, has gold MOP purfling, and has wood binding all the way around it makes it not just a botta-bing botta-boom, wham-bam-thank you ma'am kinda fix. Unless someone knows something that I don't (which very well may be the case) all that crap will have to be removed and then re-installed and I just absolutely loathe, abhor, detest (enough adjectives to make my point?) re-work. So for now I'm piddling around in the shop on some non-guitar woodworking projects, as the weather cools and I am able to get more shop time in, I will get back at the guitar building thing, the oak guitar? ummmmm... probably not! I have five sets of B&S just begging to be turned into something that simulates a guitar. Up first will be a set of purpleheart with some nice basketweave figure to it, I will bling it out with way too much abalone and MOP and make a OO sized chick-guitar for my 15 year old daughter who now plays the piano and not the guitar (perhaps I have a hole in my head too).
I want to thank tommyboy for keeping in touch with me and keeping me grounded as I navigate my way through woodworkingville and everyone at KGF who remembers me (hey, it hasn't been that long). BTW, there is nothing that I "need" lots of things that I want, I'm fortunate enough to have all I need, Thanks John!

David L

We miss you here. Look forward to you getting back to guitar work.

Good for you the storm did not hit you too hard. Hope you get back to the guitars soon.
See you,
Herman

Glad the storm didn't hit you that badly. I had a similar situation when drilling some tuner holes with a dull bit, and going in aggressivly....took out a chunk big enough that the hole grew like yours did. Here's what I did:

I filled it in with an oak dowl, some glue and sawdust, and sanded it flush on both sides. I had a really nice wenge cover plate with some decent inlay, not great, but good enough that I didn't want to do it again. It also turned out that on the other side, one of my holes was somehow out of alignement, so I did the same thing on that side. Then, I routed off 1/32" at a time a swath big enough to cover the tuner holes all the way up and down each side of the face of the headstock. Wenge is dark enough, and the grain was wild enough, that I glued in some replacement strips, mixed with a little wenge sawdust, sanded flush, and redrilled my holes. Can't even tell. The tuners cover the mistakes from the back, but I added a veneer on the back without any appreciable difference in thickness or mass. Give it a thought.

HEY DAVID! I am glad you are okay. Hey man, you will recover from the "design opportunity" you've made for yourself!
Give us pictures, we will help you figure it out. Remember what Bill always said. "It ain't a mistake............".
That is a great looking guitar, don't give up on it.
I wonder if the approach Ken took with his would work.

Kevin

Okay Kevin, you wanted pictures, just be warned it's not for the faint of heart!

David L

Here's some of the back of the head.

David L