Forming the guard

It's been a while, the neck got a GOOD Tusk nut courtesy of the local guitar wrangler and is now really a playable instrument, although the intonation of the G still leaves something to be desired but I haven't looked into that yet . . . the other stings are (close to) perfect although once I start fudzing with the truss rod (the relief is still a little large) I expect I may have to do some more adjusting. And I need to do . . . something . . . as the low E it buzzes ONLY when played open despite the fact that the height over the 1st fret is larger than over the 2nd when fretting on the 1st . . . . ??

In the mean time here is a longish post on progress with the 'proper' pick guard.

First drilling the mounting holes and then, drilling the countersinks . . . no easy recovery for mistakes now . . .

At least it looks good with the screw in place so the diameters are correct . . .

The tools for shaping, sandpaper would have been OK but a scraper makes less of a mess even if it's a little harder to keep in 'fighting trim'. I always keep a a small sanding block handy too (or is that one o . . . ) because once you've got a divot a scraper just makes it worse, especially around the edges next to the holes. And those countersunk holes make the creation of divots REAL easy.

Needs some more work but it's getting there . . . the edge at the round over especially is a bit thick.

The signs of a well sharpened scraper . . . shavings, not dust . . . so much easier to clean up, and it doesn't 'get everywhere'.

Ready for the pickup holes . . . turns out that one in the right bottom went REAL close to the edge but fortunately ended up OK. And my jig for sanding the edges in with a Dremel . . . WITH the new centering measure, it makes lining up the jig so much easier. One of the finished pickup holes is visible behind it.

Drilling control holes in the upper bout for the coil selection switches . . . and the holes for the pickup height screws . . . . . . a humbucker mounting ring makes a nice template . . . 

And here we are with most of the holes drilled and the shaping pretty much complete.

And then I had the BRILLIANT idea of recessing the pickup selection control knob . . . . 

Measuring and shaping the 'mounting plate'

And here it is with the required 3/8 hole <=> BTW ALWAYS clamp polycarbonate plastic down when drilling or sawing, or doing pretty much anything else involving any kind of force, if it moves around - especially small pieces or pieces with holes - they have a tendency to crack <=> . . . so now we need a 3/4" hole in the guard . . .

Measured . . . and cut. I used a punch to mark the center and drilled a 3/16 pilot hole (the size of the center spike on the spade bit) and then a 3/4 freshly sharpened spade bit with VERY little pressure from the back to the front and got very little tearout fortunately. Why from the back as tearout is always worst at exit holes, WELL . . . . . the front is already shaped and thus NOT FLAT making starting the bit exactly vertical that much harder. I SHOULD have done this before starting the shaping process. SHOULDA, COULDA, WOULDA I only came up with the idea later so . . . . 

AND blogger is throwing me for a loop once again . . . now it doesn't want to remove the 'align to center' from the text ... and ... even when the options show it IS removed it still . . . arrggghhhh . . . oh well I'm not getting a prize for layout anyway.

And then I produced some locating pins from a medium size nail . . . 

With some cutting, filing, grinding and fixing them into the plastic with some superglue the results are . . . quite good . . . as far as I can tell things are pretty much exactly centered with very little play . . . and the test knob (same size as the actual ones) fits correctly.

I believe we can glue it in place check all the other holes (I think the holes for the pickup height screws need to be drilled out 1/64 larger) and proceed with the finish (the guard has 1 coat of danish oil now and the quilt on the maple is nice, not 'master grade' - and it has some mineral streaks (some visible above -, but nice) and assembly . . . . . yes assembly . . . . Oh and the cutout for the neck pocket . . . need to cut out the neck pocket . . . .