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Hi all, I have a question as a 1st time builder and 1st time poster.

I thicknessed my Indian Rosewood back down with my plane, sanded it pretty well and then glued my center graft and bracing on with my gobar deck.

As I was carving the braces down, I placed it on my radius dish with a pad under it. BUT I accidently rested my elbow on the plate for a brief moment and CRACK!!!! I was extremely upset and very disappointed in my carelessness. So, now I have a small (I think about 1-1.5 inch long) crack about .75in off center at the top of my back.

What should I do to fix it?? - It is not visible, and will be reinforced by my headblock, but I still want to know the "right" way to handle this besides building and hoping.
Thanks folks.

Justin

CA (super glue) wick it in and let it dry, sand it off and your good to go!

If you can, try to clamp it first, that can be hard if your profile has been cut already. If not, clamp, wick in the CA and let dry.

Welcome to the OLF!

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

Sometimes if clamping is impossible I just hold pieces together by hand, and have someone else wick in the glue.

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

What Lance said AND welcome to the OLF Justin!

What is "wick in the glue"?

When you drip a drop of CA next to a crack, it is sucked into the crack, it wicks in the same way a wick pulls fuel up it to burn.

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

Thanks!

Thanks guys. Is CA a brand of super glue?

CA is short for is cyanoacrylate. Super Glue is one brand of cyanoacrylate glue.

On my build (my first) I've suffered several cracks and have used the CA glue trick with success each time. Between the cracks and the glue fumes, I'm feeling more like a crackhead each day.

Darrin

Try LMI or Stewmac for it.

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

Be forewarned that if you hold the crack in alignment with your fingers and wick in CA, it will likely contact your fingers and you'll have a piece of wood stuck between your fingers!! (in my best Mike Collins impersonation ). And you won't have even a fraction of a second to let go! Don't ask me how I know this.

Hold it with some pieces of plastic bag between your fingers and the wood, or something the CA won't stick to.

Pat

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

My other hobby is model airplanes and we use lots of this glue. The quickest and easiest place to get CA is at a hobby shop, get the instant set glue which is the thinnest and will wick in best.

Fred Tellier

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Fred Tellier
http://www.fetellierguitars.com
Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/FE-Tellier-Guitars/163451547003866

Thanks guys for all the help. I looked last night and I do have some CA kicking around the house. And thanks for the insight on the "don't-glue-yourself-to -your-own-back". I'll be sure to use a plastic bag with some cauls or something that I can set fast.

CA, cures everything from fallen arches to the common cold. What did builders do before it? Really, I would like to know. My current build is maggoty with the stuff.

My understanding is that CA was invented as a quick, battlefield fix to close wounds........ And it does indeed work for that too so if you or anyone else is ever bleeding to death and your state, country has good Samaritan legislation or you are like me and don't care.... you can hold a wound closed and wick CA into it with good results.

Like my pal Fred I did the RC model airplane thing too and one night while I was teaching a guy down the field stuck his hand through the prop of a 1/4 scale model with a chainsaw engine on it..... He was bleeding profusely and we were 15 miles from an ER and this was prior to cell phones..... The other instructor and I looked at each other and we both had the same idea at the same time - we glued his cuts shut and transported him to an ER. At the ER the docs said that we did exactly the right thing.

A couple of weeks later this same guy came back out to our community flying field with a terrible wound on his forehead...... We asked him what happened. He explained that while under a car and trying to remove a muffler on the cheap it slipped and cut his head open. He went on to explain that he remembered what we did for his hand cuts and ran into the house and tried CA on his forehead. It didn't take quick enough for him so the idiot sprayed accelerator on his head and that burned the hell out of him........

Anyway this guy didn't last in RC flying and crashed every time he took off..... I heard that he went on to work as a monitor at a local nuclear power plant...... True story.

oh man. that is too funny. I bet Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain weren't aware of this particular guy when they were advocating nuke power the last few weeks.