LESSON LEARNED: Make sure your router base is perfectly flat and smooth. My stupid plastic Dremel router base had a little plastic nob that made a small circular depression in my soundboard. I can scrape it out latter, but still it's a stupid mistake to make.
Oops! Soundboard Repair
Sooo...I made an almost tragic soundboard mistake. I was using a tool (cough...mechanical pencil...cough) to fit (jam) some of the rosette purfling into the really snug soundboard channel, when my "tool" slipped and punched a hole into the top. That kind of a move pretty much ends the day of guitar building...
After some thought I decided that I could carefully razor knife out a rectangular area encompassing the hole, keeping my cut lines exactly on the grain lines. I would then be able to match the grain spacing to a piece of scrap from when I cut out the top (save the scraps!) and essentially plug it and scrape flush. It was pretty much the most counter-intuitive thing I could think to do at the time, so of course it worked.
Ultimately, I was able to chisel the new hole flat, carefully fit in my plug, scrape flush, and all in all it turned out perfect. I also knew that when I cut out the soundhole, the end of my graft would disappear and you may never notice the graft at all...
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZUVjJbKCsLlaxDFj4ifsfHe9UZQjmO94Fac-qwytXS3OG4ChFVAPQyscBlmBsXcze69rkIlF1tIc2fjgnP9Tut0SA_pnFK_PLbgzwUo16fcm81UV74hOnmG3O8HOOx54mnu8za9BbUIA/s320/69.JPG)
It actually worked. Lesson learned? Pencils are for drawing.