I started by ordering a thin strip of carbon fiber, which is in the same family as KEVLAR. One two foot strip the width of linguini was enough to reinforce around the neck with the strength of steel and the weight of styrofoam. Reason being that this Fab Junior relies on the butt end of the neck to keep from bending, and whomever routed it, potentially compromised the neck. But mapples is murfucker strong! On top of the carbon I glued in first two quarter inch thick popsicle sticks I made with my Dremel Dremel Dremel, and sandpapers. On top of that I glued in a pretty hunk of tiger maple that will be gloriously buried under jetglo black paint. It took me about four hours to get it to the right shape to fit (with a hand drill and heaps of tightly controlled violence).
Today I covered the glue joints with a wood epoxy (QUIK WOOD!) that comes as a two-part putty and you can shape it into Gumby or a Rodin. Tap that thing!
Since I already dealt with the strength issues, I wanted to hone the cosmetics, a la Bondo. All those art skilz brought to bear! Now it's drying. I am going to let it harden until tomorrow and then sand teh shits out of it. After that I brush on the nitro based grain filler, and paintedy paint paint paint. The top middle picture is residual poly, not jizz. Why sand it out when it makes a good filler? I will leave the original Fireglo paint in the control cavity, even though it was obviously heatgunned to death. The seller claimed that all the burns were a previous owner's careful stain job. That thing has more scorchmarks than the Taco Bell chihuahua. It's not factory new, but who is, and at least it will be around to sing again.One hour after application can be drilled, sawed, sanded, filed, tapped, machined, and painted.
