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I have a nice Sitka Spruce top with a lot of nice bear claw. There is a pitch pocket or a knot, I don't know which is which... I was wondering if anybody had any suggestion for dealing with it. It is worse on one than the other. I thought that I would go easy on the sanding, but I'll have to do some. ...don't want it to look any worse...

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Steve Sollod (pronounced sorta like "Solid")
www.swiftcreekguitars.com

When you put the pieces together, where on the guitar top is it? Can it be placed in the sound hole or in the waist cut offs?

Unfortunately, there will be no way to hide it... It's inside the template and not where the hole, fingerboard, rosette or pick guard would be...

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Steve Sollod (pronounced sorta like "Solid")
www.swiftcreekguitars.com

Seems to me the wrong shape for a knot, got to be a pitch pocket. Personally, I like them. Makes the wood seem more real. But they're not too popular out in most parts of the buying market.

I've patched gouges by harvestng a splinter from another part of the same top and inlaying it, paying close attention to runout so that the inlay doesn't have different reflective characteristics than the surrounding area. With careful work and hide glue this could be near- invisible, discernible only if you know where to find it. But sometimes the fixes turn out worse than the original problem.

Pat

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

Pat, I thought of harvesting a splinter... Since there is a lot of bear claw, it might not be as noticeable.... or maybe I should just not worry about it...
...any other comments from folks...?

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Steve Sollod (pronounced sorta like "Solid")
www.swiftcreekguitars.com

cant help ya on a fix, short of a small patch. But something to do in the future is to candle your
top plates before you put too much work in to them. I sand mine to thickness and then turn all the lights
off in my shop except for one desk lamp on my bench, then I hold the top up to the lamp and get a
sort of xray of the insides. I can see pitch pockets as dark spots. If I see this, the top hits the trash can.

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

What Lance said - finding pitch pockets early can save a lot of head aches.

Some builders will also bake their tops, I bake @ 200 degrees for one hour. Baking can help identify pitch pockets too by making them ooze and even drying up the pitch to some degree. Baking is NOT a substitute for for properly seasoning wood or kiln drying, we do it for other reasons which is a bit off topic here. But it does seem to uncover pitch pockets if they exist.

Another thing that helps me is to be mindful once the rosette is installed to do any additional thickness sanding from the back side of the top so if you uncover a slight, cosmetic pitch pocket it is at least on the inside of the guitar.

Harvesting a sphincter is one fix.... or as mentioned if the guitar is for you just consider this one cosmetic character.

Here is a picture of candling to in this case find the braces while tapping but you can see how candling as Lance said is like an X-ray:

Hesh, you meant harvesting a splinter, right?

There is a story, but I do not know if it is true. Jose Romanillos had a piece of top wood that had exceptional tone quality in the raw, but a pitch pocket. He cut out the pocket and patched it. The guitar was one of his best and most famous.

Has anyone made a patch and can describe or show how?

I suppose if you are a famous luthier like Romanillos you can fill it and sell it, but if you are not you can't.

Here's what Frank Ford does to patch spruce on a finished guitar. You could use off cuts to harvest your patch.
http://frets.com/FRETSPages/Luthier/Technique/Structural/SpruceHole/sprucehole.html

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Ken Franklin
clumsy yet persistent
https://www.kenfranklinukulele.com

I assume your talking 200 Fahrenheit not Celsius so that'd be around 95 c?

Cheers guys love picking up these tips

John

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Formerly JJH

I learn more from my mistakes than my successes

John my friend - yep F not C. You can find lots of info on baking tops in the archives too.

I just am not sure how to take that one...

Mike