On Making Mistakes
Things don’t always go perfectly. Mistakes happen, and then they must be corrected. Ervin likes to say “Well….you learned something,” when a mistake is made, and there is some wisdom in that. Of course we try our best to be careful, but we are humans after all. Learning how to recover well is one of the more valuable things I’m learning here.
I recently spent a lot of time fixing the side markers on my guitar.
The first iteration was maple, inlayed into the back of the fretboard before it was glued on, and revealed on the edge to mark the frets.
After trimming the neck edges flush, I realised that the side markers weren't as visible as I thought they would be. I didn't want the player to struggle to navigate the fretboard, so I decided to replace the maple with something more visible.
I removed the maple with a tiny chisel and scraper, and replaced it with Luminlay glow in the dark material. Not only does it glow, it's whiter so more visible in good lighting too.
The Luminlay needed to be inserted fairly deeply, in order to have enough material to glow after the neck was carved. Cutting such a narrow and deep channel is slow and careful work!
Although re-doing is never much fun, I'm glad I took the time to do it. Now I have confidence the player will easily be able to find their way around the fretboard.