Alexs LP-1

[highace10]

Anyone with some tips on how i can fill that gap?

[dingobass]

Hey Alex,

Can you take the neck out and take a photo of the rout out?

[highace10]

As requested...

[Gavin1393]

Wow! That is one clean rout out job!

Ideally you want the neck and the body of the guitar to act as one piece of resonating wood.

Me, I would be reaching for my Hide Glue which is thicker than most and also melts easily so you can start over if you stuff up. This on its own may seal that gap and maintain the resonance.

I think though, that the gap in your neck to body will not adversely affect the resonance. You'd be more concerned if that gap was affecting the intonation of the guitar. Most guitars do seem to have some tolerance to allow the wood to breathe without putting additional strain on the joints which could cause them to crack, so there is this to consider even though your guitar seems to exhibit way more tolerance than would ordinarily be necessary. In the absence of a good quality Hide glue, a wooden shim would fix the gap without altering the resonance to any discernable degree if this was at all necessary. Otherwise prepare a shim, paint it in the appropriate colours to match the colour scheme of the guitar and then decide at the end if it is necessary or not?

[highace10]

Thanks for the info...

Ideally, would the shim have to reach into the neck recess or can it just be a couple of mm deep to fill the gap?

The fit of the neck is pretty snug so there isnt a lot of movement when its fitted. Should the fit be pretty good for alignment? looking side on i mean..

[Gavin1393]

As long as there is good solid contact with the sides the guitar will resonate well enough. You really only need to do what is aesthetically pleasing.

[highace10]

Im curious..it seems no amount of sanding, with all grades of paper, cannot remove what seem like scratches.

That usually happen? Are they scratches or just part of the grain?

Im planning on the first coat of Wudtone tomorrow so i would like to know if its worth spending another 4 hours on sanding.

Pedantic i know

[keloooe]

Can you maybe put an arrow in that picture to show us what direction you are sanding in???

[highace10]

Ive been sanding vertically mainly..seems to agree with the grain a bit better. They arent visable when a bit of moisture is added so i think ill be fine.

Hopefully ive sanded enough to get rid of the glue that was there. Water seems to soak into the timber nicely.

[dingobass]

Looks pretty darn good to me, and I am so anal when it comes to sanding!

You will find that during the Wudtone process those fine marks will disappear.

One thing I would suggest is that you carefully steel wool the binding so it is nice and shiny before you start the Wudtone.
This will make it easier to remove the Wudtone from the binding, most of it will come off when you steel wool between coats.

When you have finished the colour coats you will have a much easier time of cleaning up the binding.