Acoustic Guitar Construction

I think my issue was not making my
channel deep enough. I had to scrape
too much off and, as you can see, I took
some of the beautiful color in the abalone.

Are there any fixes or do I just live with it?

Just thinking out loud here....

Could I take the dremel and route out the abalone, make
the channel a bit larger and install another abalone rosette?
The one I installed is 3mm wide. I could do a 4 or 5 mm and
start over. Is that possible?

First off, i don't think it looks bad. We are our own worst critics.You have plenty of room to go wider. I think you could go with the same size abalone, but go with a purfling on either side. That gives you some room to go wider, and I personally like the look of purfling to ease the transition from the top wood to the abalone. As far as removing, I wouldn't directly route the shell, that stuffs not good to breath in. I would route just to the outside and chisel it out. I'm sure others will have suggestions as well.

Mark,
How did you glue it in? If you used PV glue it should chisel out pretty easily.
You can remove it as suggested by Kyle and the purfling lines really do add a lot so you might consider outlining your new abalone. I haven't routed shell but I would think it will rout out fine if you choose to do it. It is a good idea to set the shell just BELOW the surface of the top and sand to it..not much though, just a couple of thousands.

Kevin

Kevininca wrote:Mark,
How did you glue it in? If you used PV glue it should chisel out pretty easily.
You can remove it as suggested by Kyle and the purfling lines really do add a lot so you might consider outlining your new abalone. I haven't routed shell but I would think it will rout out fine if you choose to do it. It is a good idea to set the shell just BELOW the surface of the top and sand to it..not much though, just a couple of thousands.

Kevin

I used Hot Stuff CA....Yeah, that's where I messed up. I had the
shell too high. i also could have sanded a bit off of the bottom
of the shell as well. It just never occurred to me. Another lesson
learned....

SKBarbour wrote:First off, i don't think it looks bad. We are our own worst critics.You have plenty of room to go wider. I think you could go with the same size abalone, but go with a purfling on either side. That gives you some room to go wider, and I personally like the look of purfling to ease the transition from the top wood to the abalone. As far as removing, I wouldn't directly route the shell, that stuffs not good to breath in. I would route just to the outside and chisel it out. I'm sure others will have suggestions as well.

I think you did a good job...hope my first one turns out that good! But I agree here...and would add to it rather than taking it out...not only will it do what you want it to do...but it will lesson the chances of screwing up the top.
I don't know a lot about it, but I stayed at Motel 6 last night! :>)
Ray

Thanks for all the encouragement. I ordered a 5mm abalone rosette and
it should be delivered on Friday. I'm going to route the other one out
and put this one in the correct way. I know I can do it and I just
can't live with it looking the way it does. I must say that I love going
through things like this even though it was a mistake and is slowing
my building down. It gives me more confidence moving forward with
future builds! This coming from a guy that had a hammer and some
screw drivers as "tools."