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So....I was sanding away on my neck trying to get the shape to be pleasing. Well...I finally got it to where it felt nice in my hand. But, when I put my thumb in a playing position something felt wrong. I took a closer look:


The wood was paper thin and crumbled when I poked it. AHHHH!!!! What will I do? Strangely, I was barely bothered by this stupid mess I had created. I figured I would get upset if I couldn't fix it. But what would I do? A patch would stand out like a sore thumb, so that was out of the question. I emailed Ken Cierp and he suggested that I needed to make the repair look like a design element. Great. Now I have to come up with a design that wont look out of place. Well...after one night of staring at this gaping hole in the back of my neck, I went to set it on a shelf for the night. As I did so, I spotted my 12th fret marker. You guys remember this, no?


Eureka!! I would make a larger "12th fret marker" to fill the gaping wound!! And so....


I need to fill the gaps a bit, but I think it came out pretty good. I have to say I am not crazy about having this thing here, but it matches other design elements of the guitar so its not entirely out of place. I have a little time to decide if I want another neck or not. Maybe this will grow on me in the next week or so.
I didnt want to hide this goof up and pretend like it didnt happen, but I was not in a rush to post pics until I had fixed it. I just scraped it flush about 2 minutes before I started this post, so I did rush to get it up after it was fixed. Anyway, mistakes happen, but I wanted to show anyone interested that you can walk away from a disaster like this relatively unscathed.
Thanks for looking!

Tony

Nice save Tony!

David L

mistakes are opportunities for design enhansment , and I would say you dun good

"There can be no miracle recoveries without first screwing up"

(that paraphrases the sig line of one of my fellow moderators on a boat building forum)

For me, guitar building is just a series of screw-ups, linked by head scratching and recovery.

Nice recovery.

I love the treatment on your fingerboard. (and the new "thumb rest")

Thanks for sharing your story.

Tony,

I agree with the rest of the posts - nice recovery. I also go from one "learning opportunity" to the next when working on my guitars. Thanks for posting.
John

That is a creative fix Tony.......good job.

Okay Tony, I too think your fix is great. What a bummer thing to have happen.
No one asked, maybe assumed, but is that the truss rod you exposed? Why was it laid so deep into the neck shaft?
A standard thickness neck at the upper frets should not have gotten into the truss rod, or, what is that I'm seeing?

Kevin

Tony... was that back strip inlaid? or was it a solid lamination on the neck. (sorry if the story is out there somewhere and I missed it)

Awesome job, Tony.

I too am curious about the neck. what is in there that takes up so much room? not on attack on the maker, just curious.

Nice save, Tony. I'd a pitched it, but I just learned something. Good Job!