Soundhole in the wrong spot... what would you do?

[Ryan Mazzocco]

I made 3 tops today. they all turned out beautifully except for one problem.
After I finished sanding down the rosettes I stepped back to view them all when I discovered that something was amiss with my Cedar dread top. I don't know how I did it, but when I measured down to locate the center of my sound hole I missed it by exactly one inch. So, now my sound hole is an inch too close to the nut. I don't see any way I can still use it because it was actually a re-top and the neck/fretboard/truss rod are already put together and the truss rod access is through the upper face brace (that's just in theory now.)
Is there any way to salvage this and still be able to use it for this guitar? If not, and I have a feeling that's the case, what would you do with a cedar dreadnaught top with a 4" sound hole that starts 2 11/16" from the 14th fret?

thanks

[Mark Swanson]

Without some pretty serious reconstruction in which you might glue in new cedar in the sound hole and re-route it, trying to place a new rosette or rosette rings over the seams, you might be right- you may not be able to use it for the re-top. But, you may be able to use it for a small guitar of some kind.

[Alan Carruth]

The top of the soundhole is not too far shy of the 19th fret, so if you extend the fingerboard out into the hole you'll catch that, at least for the first string. That fingerboard 'finger' needs to be supported pretty well or the note won't sound very good, or for very long. Moving the hole up also lowers the .main air' resonant pitch noticeably, so you can tell folks you did it to get better bass. What they don't know...

Alan Carruth / Luthier

[Ryan Mazzocco]

Ah, I did do it on purpose. I wanted to see if anyone could catch it. Good job Alan.
Nah, that's bull. I just wasn't paying attention.
Mark- I had considered doing a smaller style guitar with a shorter scale, but I was concerned about the 4" hole being too big for a smaller guitar. Dreadnaught is the only size I've dealt with so o don't know much about anything else.
Alan- that was my first thought but I was afraid it would really look stupid. It still may, but I was planning to modify the neck to install a cantilever system because I had no support between the trust rod and fingerboard extension (poor design on my part.) So I may just give it a try anyway.
Thanks guys.

[Mario Proulx]

Don't worry about the soundhole size; even my size Zero runs a 4" soundhole; the others run way larger...

Is the soundhole itself cut out yet? If you only did the rosette, but hadn't cut out the soundhole, you can flip the top over and place the rosette and soundhole in the correct location.

Edit: or build a new guitar with a 15 fret neck and a shorter scale for this top.

[Ryan Mazzocco]

Yes its cut out already. I didn't even notice until I stacked the tops together and the holes didn't line up. But at least I've got several options to consider now. I didn't have any before.