Finishing the box - part 1

Time to catch up on my 3rd guitar. A few months ago I got the neck and the box pretty close to finished. I took a picture while fitting the neck to the body. I'm using a double mortise and tenon joint on this guitar, similar to the last one.

I finished the neck with West System III epoxy to fill the pores, sanding back to the wood. I used Tru-Oil varnish on this one because I really liked that way the neck on #2 turned out.


The next step is filling the pores on the box. Here is a shot after the first coat. I'm using the West epoxy again with just a little silica added. The silica seems to make the epoxy fill the pores a little better without adding any color to the wood. It also makes it a bit easier to sand off the excess epoxy. After spreading the epoxy around, I scrape as much off as possible using a razor blade.

Finally, here is a shot of the top. You can almost make out the blue purfling line between the rosewood binding and the spruce top. It also shows the bound sound hole as well as the mortise for the neck joint. Some people don't like putting epoxy on the top, but I want to fill the binding and will sand it all down to the wood before putting on the varnish.

I let in harden overnight, then scrape / sand and see if I need a second coat.