Covering holes with veneer ?

Jazzthat

Yet another quest I have to deal with on the Hondo neck I am slowly moving on .
After filling in old tuners holes , I have pretty much settled on just drilling new ones and move on .
But , the more I kept looking at that headstock , the more I wanted to look better than that ( photo ) .

Will it be viable to get some thin veneer to cover all that mess and sand it down to blend in with the neck ?
Or am I just going to far with this  ?

davros

I reckon the new tuners will cover the majority, and whoever looks at the back of the headstock!

I would expect a veneer and refin would be much more obvious than the remaining visible holes.

Jazzthat

davros said:

I would expect a veneer and refin would be much more obvious than the remaining visible holes.

That's what I was wondering about  . 
If I would glue a veneer , I think , it would look really good and clean . 
On the other hand matching the rest of the neck could be a challenge .

I will put tuners on and take a shot in a minute . Maybe it won't look as obvious as I think it is atm.

Jazzthat

Definitely not going to be covered

Apart from ' killing' my eyes , mole holes , there is another issue of three different wood pieces  pattern glued together , and if you look closely , there is a steel pin nailed in in far left corner !

 

WezV

Think I would backstrap it, or paint a stinger

davros

Yeah, those fancy Schallers don't cover much up!

A veneer would work - is it mahogany or maple? Getting a good colour match between the ambered neck and fresh headstock might be tricky though. A stinger would be the traditional (Gibson) approach to hiding the flaws, if you are ok with that look.

PeteC

A highly contrasting veneer clamped and then sanding blended into the neck transition would work - but tricky !  You might need to router plane a mm or two off the back of the headstock first though so have a good look online at techniques first ! 

the more experienced builders here would tell you how feasible that is 

WezV

PeteC said:

A highly contrasting veneer clamped and then sanding blended into the neck transition would work - but tricky !  You might need to router plane a mm or two off the back of the headstock first though so have a good look online at techniques first ! 

the more experienced builders here would tell you how feasible that is 

Thats the backstrap idea.   

Doesn't look like you would need to route anything on this guitar as it has a nice flat transition into the neck already.  Although that could be done if you wanted to significantly increase stiffness.


Depends on the guitar for me.   On a junior I would go with matching wood, on an archtop I would use something contrasting and make a feature of it. 

SlopeSoarer

As long as it is structurally good (if it were me) I'd leave it as it tells a story and think it looks quite good:-)

Sarge

A stinger can look ok if the low point is carried on down the neck like a skinny skunk strip. 

Danielsguitars

WezV said:

Think I would backstrap it, or paint a stinger

Just going to say stinger, that would look good 

Roland

SlopeSoarer said:

As long as it is structurally good (if it were me) I'd leave it as it tells a story and think it looks quite good:-)

This

Grangousier

Perhaps convince yourself of the wisdom of the Japanese world view of wabi sabi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabi-sabi

Jazzthat

WezV said:

PeteC said:

A highly contrasting veneer clamped and then sanding blended into the neck transition would work - but tricky !  You might need to router plane a mm or two off the back of the headstock first though so have a good look online at techniques first ! 

the more experienced builders here would tell you how feasible that is 

Thats the backstrap idea.   

Doesn't look like you would need to route anything on this guitar as it has a nice flat transition into the neck already.  Although that could be done if you wanted to significantly increase stiffness.


Depends on the guitar for me.   On a junior I would go with matching wood, on an archtop I would use something contrasting and make a feature of it. 

I think , this method would work best in this case . 
Not sure yet , if to go with maple to match the neck or something that stands out .
Off to eBay to search for veneer

Jazzthat

Roland said:

SlopeSoarer said:

As long as it is structurally good (if it were me) I'd leave it as it tells a story and think it looks quite good:-)

This

I was going to , but not anymore  

WezV

What is the guitar?

Jazzthat

WezV said:

What is the guitar?

A Hondo HLP-2N , so I am taking this lightly and can experiment on

MattNovak

I have a guitar I call Van Gogh, because it has a bit of veneer missing

WezV

Jazzthat said:

WezV said:

What is the guitar?

A Hondo HLP-2N , so I am taking this lightly and can experiment on

For that I would go with matching maple veneer.

I was incorrectly guessing it was something like a fatboy.   For one of those I would have matched the heel cap and backstrap to tie it all together.   that suits the big archtop look, wouldn't work here

Jazzthat

Done 

It is a bit Frankenstein job , but at least I like it more than it was before .

Andyjr1515

Looks good.  Great job