So here the middle of the bridge pickup cutout in the top has been hogged out with a jigsaw (drilled 3/8" hole in the middle and cut about 1/16" inside the edge lines), the blue tape is on the edge lines. Next 1/2" poplar boards were glued around the edge using super glue and the painters tape trick (search YouTube if you don't know that one yet) and finally a 1/2" pattern bit with a top bearing was used to refine the edge . . . easy. Not quite as fast as with a dedicated pattern and not suitable for complex shapes but for the occasional rectangular cutout it works perfectly.
And both pickup holes are done . . . next the cavity for the controls, I either have to cut it now (and have to route to EXACTLY the edge after front and back are glued up OR have to cut in from the edge later . . . not even sure if that would be possible as you would need a really long motising bit OR a really large groove cutting bit and even then quite a bit of chiseling would be required through a small opening with a 1/16" thick piece of wood on one side . . . I don't have either of those bits (if the first even exists) and I'm not that good with chisel so I'll cut it now . . .
You can see the channel for the wires cut with a bowl bit in the first photo - and some cutting were the controls will go . . . got stupid again and tried to ease the bit in with a fixed base . . . no, no , NO of course the bit grabbed and, no permanent damage to either the work piece or my fingers but I SHOULD have know better and not even tried . . . dumb, dumb, DUMB. So I assembled the router in the plunge base, as I should have done in the first place, and cut the channel. The outside edge for the cavity MUST be in EXACTLY the right place otherwise the cavity will not be deep enough OR it won't be open on side to accept the controls thus measure, measure, check & measure again so you KNOW it's right . . . here the tape (and 'template') is actually 2 mm OUTSIDE the lines to be cut as I'm using a pattern insert with a 1/4" spiral bit . . . a bit of an experiment as I came across these bits at Harbor Freight, 3 for ... $9? I think ... only HSS not carbide but . . . we'll see . . . and measure, check, check and measure for final depth. It won't do to go through the top after all this work . . . I tried to take light passes but . . . there's always a but . . . lets leave it at that, it didn't go as expected but in the end no permanent damage was done beyond uttering some words that shouldn't be repeated in polite company. No fault of the bit though, I wouldn't want to use it for heavy work, one deeper pass had a LOT of burn but go easy and it does the job . . .
Oh and I need to check that template guide, the bit was off by about 0.3-0.5 mm not sure if it's the template guide [also from Harbour Freight - but it seems correct], the template base [from MLCS - unlikely to be wrong] OR the plunge assembly [factory set up from Makita, the likely offender at this point] EVERYTHING fits tightly together yet, one side is further from center than the other; it doen't matter much here as long as I KNOW about it but for accurate work this needs to be corrected.
Final depth confirmed with the depth gage to be 15.76 mm I was shooting for 15.50 . . . the wood is 18 mm thick and I wanted a minimum of 2 mm (~ 3/32") over the top and a 13-14 mm opening (a lever switch requires about 13 mm to put in while regular miniswitches are between 10 and 12.5 mm) so I got what I wanted. Painted both top and bottom with shielding paint (something else that would be a chore once things are assembled . . . and the cavity for volume & tone pots has also been started . .
Now to decide what else to cut out from bottom and top to make it as light as possible . . . and then we can marry them . . .
No comments:
Post a Comment