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In another thread someone mentioned that the wacky wood linings looked a little "fat". After cogitating on that for awhile i decided that making them thinner might actually have some benefit. The linings started out at 3/8th inches. They have two plys that are cross grain and a center "spine" that is long grain and holds them together. They bend quite easily and can give the same advantages as the A5 linings - flexing in both axis.
One area that was slightly lacking was the aesthetics of tight bends in the waist area. Here the "micro kerfs" that allow wacky wood to bend weren't that good looking. Most of the bends are putting the outer ply in compression and look fine.
I decided to run the linings through the sander and take them down to the typical 1/4 to 7/16ths inch, by removing material only from the face ply not glued to the side. It did two things. It made for a smoother sanded appearance, and decreasing the thickness of that ply reduced the appearance of any micro cracks on outside bends.

Clay S., just wondering, are the plates glued to mainly end grain or side grain?

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Following Clay's inspiration, I bought some of the 3/8" wood from Home Depot (they sell it in 4' x 4' panels) and cut some linings. Two notes:

1) These linings are better adapted to dreadnought shapes than to guitars with a serious waist. On either an OM or a mini-jumbo (J-185), the curve at the waist will fracture the outside surface of the lining (who knew that wood couldn't stretch?).

2) They will curve much better when soaked in water overnight -- but note 1 still rules.

If I were to buy again, I'd opt for 1/4" thickness -- but I now own a lifetime supply of 3/8".

In any case, it's the lazy man's way to solid linings.

Hi Hans,
Sand the outside face of the liner so the total thickness of the liner is 7/16ths as you see in the above pictures. Thinning the outside face of the 3/8ths wacky wood would be better than using 1/4 inch stuff. This should also allow you to make tighter bends with less trouble. The guitar pictured above is a OOOO-12 design that has a tighter waist than a Dred, but not as tight as an OM. Waist pictured below:

Colin,
Yes, I am gluing the plates to end grain. Allowing the glue to soak into the end grain and reapplying if necessary (similar to sizing) can avoid a starved joint. With solid linings there is plenty of gluing surface (even with kerfed linings there is plenty of gluing surface) If you look at the tiny linings used on some 170 year old instruments that are still together it makes you appreciate how little gluing area is needed.

To satisfy my curiosity I wrapped the "new improved" wacky wood lining around the waist of my OM mold to see how it would do.I think it does much better than the unsanded version.