Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi -

In the spirit of posting our dumb mistakes ...

I had joined my back and cut it out. I was thicknessing it with a hand plane. I took it out of the clamps to admire my work and I saw there was a corner where the clamp was that was slightly warped - due to the fact that it was thicker than the rest of the board. So I started to fix the board a little to get it back into shape and see how "permanent" it was.
"CRACK" !! ugh.... It cracked next to one of my seams about 4 to 5 inches long from the top. It was a tight crack, so I simply slipped some Tightbond in there and fit it back together the way it wants to be and placed a #5 plane on top of it.
It is maple, so I am sure that my crack will probably show up slightly when finished, ugh.

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It's this new idea from recent decades that everyone gets a participation award. - MUX

if the crack is tight You will never notice it. Hide in this case may have beed a beter glue but you are fine if went back togather tightly.

thanks for the comfort - it went back together very tightly as I had to pull pretty hard just to open it to put in glue - thanks!

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It's this new idea from recent decades that everyone gets a participation award. - MUX

John, I had this happen once without even flexing it. I was just holding the back by the end off to one side and just the weight of it alone was enough to split the thing. Really taught me about gentle handling of thin pieces.

I hear you there. I was working on my first guitar and I was testing the thickness of the top by grabbing at both sides, and then wobbling my hands up and down, waiting for the sound of sheet metal. What I heard was sheet metal, followed by the sound of "CRACK", followed by the sound of me spouting out a list of choice words that you probably wouldn't hear at church.

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Always remember you are unique......just like everyone else.