The only update for this week is the headplate. I finished carving it yesterday, and glued it last night. Some finish-sanding is in order, there are some tear-outs to get rid of. A tear-out happens during surfacing, where the planer gouges out a piece of the wood. This seems to happen more with knotty woods, birds-eye maple being one of those. You can see the gouges in the top of the headplate in this photo:
A side benefit to the extra finish-sanding is that the tuners will sit lower in relation to the nut. You need a bit of angle between the nut and the tuners, or else your strings can slip out of the nut grooves. Still, the carving and gluing went well. In retrospect, I should have thought of the headplate during my design phase, if only to make boring the tuner holes a one-step process, instead of the additional steps I had to do.
Then again, the design phase has more or less happened all through this project, partly because I think of new things that I want to incorporate, and partly because I come up against the limitations of either my tools, my materials, or my knowledge, and so I'm forced to adapt.
I like my attempt at the detail around the nut. It didn't come off perfectly, but with a little fill, it should be barely noticeable. Another detail I added was to surround the nut with the headplate.
Next up, continue finishing he fingerboard. It's getting close. After that, wait for some decent weather, so I can take the pieces out and stain and oil them.
After that, DONE! My estimate is another two to three weeks. Considering I wanted to have the whole thing done by the end of March, I'm over schedule, but since I'm not building this for anyone but me, it's all good.
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