Acoustic Guitar Construction

Hello everyone! I'm new to the forum and have my first build in progress. It's an OM style acoustic and I've just finished the rosette. It's spalted maple with bwb purflings and an american black walnut ring that I made myself. I bent it by hand in front of the steam shooting out of the pour spout of a boiling tea kettle. It's my not so perfect first attempt. Do you think it's worthy of use or should I scrap it and start over?

Hi Walter welcome. It looks pretty good to my old eyes. I've bent wood over a candle before. It's up to you if you feel it will detract from the finished guitar then redo. Nice guitar by the way

Walter - Welcome to the Forum! :-)

Looks like a good job to me, but you are the one who has to be pleased. Is the fretboard wide enough to cover the business on the top of the rosette?

Thanks guys. The fretboard is more than wide enough to cover the top portion. My concern was that the material looked somewhat darker once I sanded it, and some of the purfling lines are not as straight as I would like them. They seem to have shifted at the bottom of the channel and, once scraped and sanded down, became visible. I guess this is my one and only chance to say "hey, it's my first guitar"!

Beware of sanding dark wood or dark plastic when you are working on the top! If the dark stuff gets into the pores of the spruce it can be troublesome. Especially, do not try to grab the dark stuff with a chemical of some sort, it will end up making you so mad you will see dead people. It happened to me.

I did take that into account before proceeding. Someone had posted the same warning(maybe you?) somewhere in here and so I sprayed the surface with Deft laquer sealer beforehand. It worked great. The dust came right off.

Hi Walter welcome!

Looks pretty nice to me ---- do your very best with your current tools and skills and you'll end up with a wonderful heirloom