And time flys by...

It's hard to believe that in one week from today, the semester will be over. So far things have gone as good as I had expected and the momentum keeps picking up. I just have 2 or 3 fret jobs to finish and a couple of finals before Christmas break can begin. I'm kind of looking forward to break, not only because it will be a good time relaxing and spending some time with the family and friends, but I know it will go by rather quickly and second semester will begin. Second semester is going to be so incredibly sweet it's ridiculous. I'll be building the dreadnought, the electric, and finishing the archtop, learning finishing, doing some repairs, and having a blast.

So I made a new gouge handle tonight out of a chair leg that I got from Brian that he got from Dylan. Why a chair leg you ask? Because it works. Using the short handle that came on the gouge was a recipe for bloody knuckles, and I definitely cooked some of those up last week. The longer handle keeps some distance between your knuckles and the bench or piece that you're arching and makes the work easier and more enjoyable. Not to mention, a chair leg definitely adds some character to my tool collection. Brian took a picture or two of the attachment of the chair leg to the gouge, so hopefully I'll be able to get it/them posted, but I think you can use your imagination in the meantime.

I smoothed out the screw ups from the routing misadventure on Tuesday with some files, and the back looks just fine. Thankfully, its only really off in a couple of places, so it shouldn't affect the structural integrity of the guitar. I then started the second rough arching, which is really making it start to look like an archtop. After that's done, it'll be on to spot gluing the plates and drilling the locating pin holes. I'll make sure post some photos once this is done, because it really starts looking like a guitar during the spot gluing.

I talked to my instructor on Tuesday about binding the f-holes. He said it was a big pain and wouldn't recommend it, but it's something I'd really like to do and I could get it done if I took my plates home and did most of the work outside of class. Maybe I'll order up some f-hole binding and make a decision when it comes time. Bob Benedetto does make it look easy... Anyone else have any input on the situation?

And that's all I got for ya'll tonight.