In control . . . somewhat

Well LIFE got in the way again . . . so progress has been somewhat slow . . . BUT . . .

First we got the jack . . . and that's were it needs to go . . . and checking for angle

So I don't have any pictures from actually drilling the hole . . . first I drilled a 7/8 hole using a fostner bit in my hand drill about 1/8 - 3/16 deep as a countersink

and then tried a 3/8 fostner in my hand drill to do the rest but that was slow going so I switched to a 3/8 spade bit to drill through to the control cavity. This is the final result with the electrocup nice and countersunk.

The end were it went into the cavity needed some work to enlarge it so the female jack would fit but some careful work with a rotary rasp and 220 grit sandpaper took care of that . . . sorry no pics here.

Next up the cut outs for the volume & tone controls. If I had a drillpress I would have used that with a Fostner bit but . . . yep . . . don't have one, so this called for a template and some router work . . . 

Some careful measuring, routing and work with a 1" spade bit later we have a template that fits perfectly in the cutout were the control cutouts need to go . . . and some work with a top bearing router bit later we have the cutouts for the controls. And as you can see I annotated the template after the fact. This last photo also shows the 'headache' I've put off dealing with, a rather large tearout at the back of the lower front bout. Still wondering what I'll do to fix it . . . which is on the 'menu' for next weekend . . . together with the removal of some material from the top front bout . . .

And finishing up on this . . . . the relief on the treble side of the neck pocket

And then there was THIS

Two pieces of 3/4" plywood laminated and banded on the long sides to form a base for my wife's lathe . . . for now it can be clamped to my work table or the old picknick table in the back but eventually it'll get the rest of a stand attached.

Coutours

So it's been a while . . . life sometimes has to happen too . . .

The next step is to rout the major contours into the body . . . the treble side first . . .

You can nicely see the difference in color between cherry that has been exposed for a while and freshly cut surfaces which are MUCH pales . . . unfortunately the IS some tearout along the backside of the 'horn' - such as it is - The options are to round over the edge, defeating the right angles of the design, cut a piece of closely grain matched cherry (I looked for the chip but was unable to find it) or I may inlay some quilted maple . . . we'll see later . . . maybe thin out that whole area one step further still (NOPE that IS NOT going to work, just checked and there's a relief cut in the back there, see the previous post) . . . have to check if I hollowed out the back there though. The middle picture shows were things went wrong when cutting away the 'waste' from the face of the 'waist'. I know what NOT to do the next time.

Next cutting the 'reveal' for the pickup switch control cavity.

It's actually 1/32 or so deeper than it should be ... one again live an learn, next time I'll drill a 1/4 hole into the cavity once I'm within an 3/16 or so so I can check the exact placing for the last router cut. This time I just advanced bu 1/16's or so and that didn't quite work out the way I thought.

And the mailman came by delivering the brass for the pickup rings and the control cavity cover . . . I don't remember ordering quite this many of the blanks for covers, but then again I'm bound to screw up at least one and now have plenty of spares. BTW brass is A LOT more work to cut that aluminum.

And then, the arm relief carve ....

Once more a bit of an experiment, a rotary rasp on my drill . . . I think I like the carving blade on my angle grinder better, it removes wood faster with more control, but this also works and makes slightly less of a mess. Ofter the removal of most of the waste it was back to a hand rast and file -once again notice the contrast between the fresh cut and the longer exposed wood - I'm still not entirely happy with this, I think the edge should meet the edge of the control rout but I didn't want to go 'too far' here.

And finally for some belly relief . . . not as extreme as the first one but it feels quite nice.