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So, as I posted in another thread, the other night I tried to fit in alot of guitar work seeing as my schedules so jam packed right now, so I tried to make time by staying up. With that said I got to thinking (or not thinking) at about 1:15am that I'd save myself some time by flush trimming my maple bindings down to my headstock... Well that worked out terribly as I had forgotten that after I trimmed my shape in from my template in the first place, I had adjusted it by hand as it was the first guitar with this headstock.

With that said, the template was no longer the same shape, and there was no way to center it, but I was feeling lucky I guess.

Anyhow, it ate into my headstock a little bit, which would have been no big gig, but I had just spent a couple hours binding my headstock. Granted, that was precious time that I didn't have in the first place, and all tasks at home are a bit more difficult with out the proper tools at my disposal. Awful lighting, lack of tools, and tired. All equal terrible things.

I was lucky to scrap away with clean channels in the first place, followed by really clean binding and miters, as it's wooden binding on the headstock, and bends along the top took a little time. Up to that point it was all luck at that time of the night. But after that, the luck slipped away and I butchered it. The binding got paper thin in a couple spots, and was full thickness in the others.

The only plus side is what I had over looked... The tapers from the headstock to the nut were off center on the treble side... Big time! I have a picture below of that. Once I realized this, I was completely ok with the fact that I ruined my binding as it was doomed to begin with. Lesson learned?? Don't work on guitars when your sleep deprived.

So the fix was to spindle sand a new even looking shape to the guitar, basically clean up the asymmetry, and try to keep the original shape. So once the headstock was cleaned up, I had to route new binding channel to eliminate the original flawed thickness binding. Didn't take too long the second time around. With the proper tools it was routed, and bound up with in an hour. Take a peak, and I'll upload more once the guitars actually cleaned up, but it's very sloppy looking right now as it has to be sanded out.

Here's pictures, plus a couple bonus.

Before:










Notice how the treble side is far too wide, something I overlooked before routing it the first time. This was the realization that made the initial mistake feel alright, since this was bound to happen anyhow, haha.




Here's a couple bonus pictures, about to dry clamp fingerboard gluing.

Now for the fix. This part was actually pretty easy, initially I was just really upset because of the fact that I wasted all of that precious time, but after sitting on it a couple days, it was no biggie. Just reshaped the headstock to make it look as even as possible, then rerouted a fresh channel. Miters on the wooden binding turned out clean again, so I'm happy.

Here's after the new channels are routed. I scribed my inlay and just about to chalk it out. For those who don't know how to inlay, here's 2 bonus pictures. Take a piece you want into your guitar, lightly glue it down, scribe around it, and bam it's magic. With the scribe marks in the wood, just scrap a bunch of chalk dust onto the headstock, and then smear it in and it appears like magic.





And for the final product (But not sanded out):





I'm happy with the fix, and I'm happy with the new bindings. Most of all though, I'm very happy with the design of this headstock. Like I said in the other thread, this is the first original headstock design I've come up with that I've liked enough to use on my instruments. I haven't seen anything like it yet, but I'm sure soon enough I will, just like every other design.

Hope you enjoyed my mishaps. :P

-Dan

The new headstock shape looks pretty classy especially with the wood bindings. Nice job on the inlays. As you route do the chalk lines stay pretty easy to see? I use pencil. With the light right it really shows up, but I have thought of scribing and using chalk. The inlay looks really good as well.

I think the chalk is pretty easy to see. I route it out with a drafting light pointing at my work so that always helps. Only reason I don't like pencil is that it rubs off too easy, and it generally traces too wide for my preference. With the scribe lines, once the chalks in there, it's almost impossible to rub it out of the line, since it's actually recessed in there a bit.

-Dan