My first build: DTL-1

[Simon Barden]

All looking good so far. I often use coloured Sharpies to try and match up colours, smearing them to blend in an area. You can also buy spirit-based wood-repair markers for doing a similar job. It all depends on how close a match you want or can accept.

[McCreed]

Yes, you have been busy.
I reckon you must have spent as much taking pics and posting as you did working on the guitar! (just kidding )

That colour match with the filler is pretty dang close. With the tuners on there, even you won't notice it (eventually).

[Bakersdozen]

I have personally found that you tend to not even notice those small details, you obsess on for days during the build process, once your holding and looking at the completed guitar as a whole in its entirety

[Sonic Mountain]

^ this is very true

[gpjt]

Yes, you have been busy.
I reckon you must have spent as much taking pics and posting as you did working on the guitar! (just kidding )

I discovered the other day that if I take a photo on my phone, then send it to myself using the Telegram chat app, I can download it using their desktop app on my computer -- and when I do that, it's already resized to a format that just uploads to the forums without any messing around. So expect loads more photos going forward...

[gpjt]

Agreed, the whole screw holes in the headstock thing is probably something I'll not care at all about when the build is done! Still, it's a fun little side project to work on while I procrastinate about drilling new screw holes for the bridge

I noticed this morning that from some angles, the hole I filled with filler is really white, and the toothpick-filled one is invisible -- almost exactly the opposite of what it looks like straight on. Interesting. I've bought some different colours of wood filler to try again on the other side of the offcut.

[Simon Barden]

You'll have to try and make sure to examine the cross-section of the end of toothpick and align anything that could be taken as grain with the grain of the headstock.

[McCreed]

I've bought some different colours of wood filler to try again on the other side of the offcut.

I was going suggest that, but this can also send you down a rabbit hole and I didn't want to be responsible for that excursion .

Whilst it's great to have various colours on hand, it can add up financially when chasing the perfect match on a single current project.
Don't ask me how I know this...

You'll have to try and make sure to examine the cross-section of the end of toothpick and align anything that could be taken as grain with the grain of the headstock

Hopefully Simon is taking the Mickey here, but I've been down that rabbit hole as well and it didn't stop my self-diagnosed OCD from noticing the end grain of the toothpick in the earlier photo. It looked like it might be a bamboo toothpick rather than a hardwood one.

[JimC]

You may laugh, but doing my ESB-4 I changed from kit tuners to smaller ones, and wanted to plug and redrill the tuner holes. I found myself considering whether I could satisfactorily make maple dowel with the grain running across the wood instead of lengthwise. In the end I just used filler and left large washers from the original tuners under the new tuners to hide the mess!

[McCreed]

I found myself considering whether I could satisfactorily make maple dowel with the grain running across the wood instead of lengthwise.

LOL! I went so far as buying plug cutters! I smoked through a couple of hardwoods with that experiment... FAIL

Then I bought a bag of 100 pine furniture plugs and went through the entire bag to find 4 that might be close grain-wise, but being pine, it took dye very differently... FAIL. (and that was with countless dilutions and washes trying to balance the colour!)

Ended up dowelling and painting. Can't see a thing now!