A EIR Dred in the D45 tradition

[Kevin in California]

I now have the purflings back and top completed. I'm pretty pleased how it turned out for my first time doing this abalone purflings. I'm NOT going to touch that spot on the back! I had a couple of places where I sanded through on the top, but I got color. I guess they were just a few thousands higher in those spots as the shell is not a consistent thickness. I still have to scrape the bindings on the sides down as they are about .010" proud. Then I'll concentrate on the neck.
Here are a few pics to show it turned out.

Kevin

[Kevin in California]

Scraped down the bindings flush with the sides tonight and rounded over the edge of the bindings a bit. I've got about .065" ti .070" thick bindings now.
Took me about an hour using a razor knife blade, one of my fav tools.
It is really starting to look like a guitar.

Kevin

[Dave Bagwill]

And a dang nice one to boot!

[TonyinNYC]

First, let me say that it looks awesome. I enjoyed doing the shell purfling on two of my guitars as well. Second, it looks awesome.
Are you using real abalone or abalam? It looks like real abalone. The spot where you say you sanded of the color looks perfectly normal for abalone. One of the differences between real shell and abalam, is that you can't sand through the color on the abalam since it is layered sheets of super thin abalone. However, it is also difficult to sand through the color on real shell as well, provided you did not install it with half of its depth sticking above the plate. Shell is shell. It is not a manufactured product, and even abalam has variations between layers, so sanding it will result in the surface look changing. As long as you don't go nuts and sand until you hit the other side, it will look great, as your picture proves. Nobody could tell where your alleged mistake was. We all saw pretty, shiny shell. You are doing excellent work. Keep the pics coming!

[Kevin in California]

Well I do have the tenon routed on the neck blank and a nice fit into the mortise. I drilled a couple of holes in the neck block mortise and just got set up last night to drill and install the bolt inserts in the tenon.....and a neighbor came over. So that is as far as I got.
Hopefully tonight I'll get the neck attached, check the alignment, etc. I have about 3/16" over the saddle area right now without the fretboard, but need to recheck once I can bolt the neck on. It should be close. I like about 1/8" there, but I can live with 3/16". I'm going to make the bridge the correct height to fit anyway.
Pics tonight if I get to work on it.

Kevin

[Tim Benware]

Has anyone told you that guitar is looking awesome? Cant wait until I get around to doing one like that.

[dave d]

Very very nice! If it looks this good now I can only imagine how the abalone will sparkle under a finish!