Official Luthiers Forum!

After "touching up" the waist bend on a maple OM, I had a couple of really deep scorch marks that wouldn't bleach out (chlorine or oxalic acid), scrub out with ethanol, peroxide out, or otherwise go away, and after scraping and sanding them out, I am left with only about .050 - .055 thickness at the waist on both sides which I am uncomfortable with, especially after torturing them for the last several days (the remainder of the sides are about .085). I am considering just laminating a piece of .02 black fiber sheet (full side width, about 3" long) on the inside over the areas to reinforce and rebuild a little thickness. I also have some Spanish cedar veneer that I could use, but the fiber would be much easier to handle, and doesn't look too bad aesthetically on the inside of the box. Any thoughts on either, or things I should avoid or be aware of? Thanks!

Thanks! I actually used a combination of ideas that I had been given, and it seems to have worked great. I used a layer of thin fabric bias tape, overlaid with a thin cross grain veneer, all laminated with HHG, covering about 4" of the waist curve on both sides. It thickened/stiffened the super-thin spot right up, and it looks like it was supposed to be that way all along.... And next time, I'll pay a little more attention to that smoke coming off of my bending iron!