MIMF

Cool little guitar. Is that black walnut on the b&s?

Place a brass plate across the string anchor point on the tailpiece. Run a wire along the bottom of the tailpiece from the brass plate to the tail of the guitar where it can be run through a hole in the body that will be hidden by the tailpiece.

A photo might help. OK, I understand CA fills but doing this on a curved surface will be more difficult than a flat one. CA can fill a hole in a flat surface but building up a divot on a curved surface may not be possible with CA. Epoxy might be a better choice.

Don't do anything untried or untested or you will likely make the situation worse. What the heck is CA parchment? I don't think you will be able to fill in a large divot with CA without it running everywhere and making a huge mess. You can run a small dremel bit down the slot to open it up a bit if ...

Get an arbor press and press them frets. It is a big improvement over a hammer.

Welcome aboard, Stephen.

Good work!

What is the problem you are having with Bob's templates. They worked for me.

I prefer the following approach, which works well for instruments with various woods adjacent to each other: 1) Spray a seal coat of lacquer 2) Apply tinted paste wood pore filler and wipe clean 3) Spray 6 coats of lacquer 4) Sand to 70% level 5) Spray another 6 coats 6) Sand to 95% level 7) Spray 2...

Epoxied fretboards can be removed with heat very easily and cleanly.

I use a floor wax called Tre-Wax on fretboards and it works great. It is a paste wax which is easy to work with.

The smell is not bad at all. Creep is a term used to describe movement in a glued joint after it cures. Fish glue does not creep like that. If you were talking about movement when the glue is still wet, it is a bit slippery but not excessively.

Word on the street is that the Antes plan will result in an over-braced guitar.

You kids are so lucky (just kidding). My first build in the mid 1970's was pre-internet, stew-mac, or the idea that sharing knowledge was a good thing. I had been seeking any scrap of information for years and finally found Irving Sloan's book which got me started. My first guitar looked OK but it w...

The top is not that bad. I have seen much, much worse.

No one uses wooden frets so asking for an example is irrelevant.

It does not have to be heated and it has a relatively long open time (meaning you can put the glue on one part and wait several minutes before attaching the second part). It dries crispy hard like hide glue. So it has a place in my shop. I use it for attaching the back and top to the sides. One down...

Jay, speculation by someone with Mr. Lewis' experience is better than actual usage by many others. Besides, I doubt you will find anyone with direct experience with those two obscure guitars. And as Michael said, eggshell is a term used in the finishing industry for a satin surface sheen, which is l...

The trick I have learned is to use lacquer and mix up my tinted coats with a lot of thinner and just a tiny bit of lacquer. That way the coats end up quite thin. Just make sure not to get any runs. Maybe spray the back or top with the guitar in a horizontal position.

Using tinted lacquer is pretty much a routine technique for experienced guitar finishers. You can make it nearly any color you want. Matching that old guitar would be fairly easy.