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It's what us old folk use when working up close.

Woodie from the looks of the fretboard patch, that's a 42 or 45 style guitar going together? Are you holding back on us?

Andy

Ok.. So to circle back around on this topic....

This appears to primarily be a chisel setup thing.. Specifically - once I hit a 30 degree microbevel - the problems basically went away unless the chisel was Mush.. Chisels still nominally have to be good - but I am not having catastrophic edge issues on everything.

So here's what I learned:
3 things for end grain spruce.
Decent chisels. Good chisels should get you fine grained steel, proper alloy and carbon content, and proper heat treatment.

30 degree microbevel. This seemed to be the magic threshold. Below this - all chisels were consistently having edge trouble....

Super sharp.

There are two 12 fret dreadnaughts and one 12 fret Auditorium/000 under construction in the shop with Style 42 trim. That was the 000 - the last to be bound.

_________________
For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

I will repeat the advice for lower sharpening angle; like even 20-23% for soft spruce. Carving knives can go as low as 20-% and stropping is used between sharpening.

I go 35% when cutting mortises in hard wood.

Not having a wicked sharp final product will cause the same results - the thought that one needs a different angle to fight a quickly ineffective tool (that started as a somewhat effective tool). Make sure one is able to get a very sharp edge on the chisel - goes a long way to having longer serviceability between blade touch-ups.

Sharp fixes most problems.

Andy

Thanks Mr. B - this would be the 20th time in the last week I have heard this...do you gentlemen coordinate with each other to better tease us sharpening-challenged persons, or is this simply a solo effort to raise my frustration level? After 2-1/2 years, every time I think I am getting a pretty good edge, it is demonstrated that I have quite a lot to learn.

_________________
For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan