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For a more professional seal, prepare a 4-5/16" diameter
cardboard disk, hinged in the middle with tape, and insert it
into the soundhole . Hold it in place against the inside edge
of the soundhole with an inflated rubber balloon .
Mask the soundboard of the body if staining the back and
sides .
Apply masking tape to cover the areas that won’t be stained
or finished . This includes the fretboard playing surface, the
sides of the fretboard (to be unmasked after staining), the
nut, the dovetail gluing surfaces on the neck and body, and
the underside of the fretboard extension .
Mask the interior of the guitar by stuffing newspaper into the
body, being sure to tuck it completely into the soundhole .
Masking the neck and body
Before sanding the neck, “drop-fill” the small fret slot spaces
under the ends of the frets . Blend super glue with some fine
wood dust, reserved from when you shaped the fingerboard .
We brushed super glue accelerator on the openings first,
waited five minutes, then used a toothpick to apply the
super glue mixture . After thirty minutes we added accelera-
tor again, and filed the small mounds of glue flush before
sanding the neck (pictured) . If you don’t fill the ends of the
fret slots, holes will remain which the lacquer finish won’t fill .
Filling the fret ends
The neck needs extra sanding and grain raising in the end-
grain areas of the heel, and the “ears” and the end of the
peghead . Sand up to 320-grit, dampening to raise the grain .
Do this several times, so the endgrain pores will absorb stain
more uniformly for a better appearance .
Sanding the neck
You can add a spraying handle to a dovetail neck by install-
ing one or two small drywall screws in the butt-end of the
dovetail tenon . Or, as an alternative, simply hold the neck
at the center, spray the peghead, the heel, and a good
portion of the neck up to where you are holding it . Loop
an S-shaped wire hanger through a tuner hole and hang
the neck for spraying the center area . You can also rest the
neck fretboard- down on a riser block and spray it in the
horizontal position .
To spray the body, you can install a handle to the neck block
with a couple of small drywall screws (pictured) .
Spray handles and hangers
Finish the wood preparation by wiping the neck and
body with a rag, dampened (not soaked) with naphtha, to
degrease all the surfaces to be finished . Handle them with
clean gloves from now on .
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