Guitar Control Cavity and Pickup Routes Complete

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Continuing with my electric guitar project, I completed the pickup cavities and control cavity after deciding against the combination of rear routing and front routing that the original Klein guitar uses. I decided rear routing was preferable. I did a quick test fit of the controls and everything looked good.

For the pickup cavities, I made a pickup template out of MDF by forming a rectangle to the dimensions of the pickup. I took advantage of the fact that the router bit can’t get into the corners which results in radiused corners for the pickup cavities. There was no need to complicate the template by trying to radius its corners as well.

Before starting the control cavity, I chose the locations of the controls and used Forstner bits to drill through the top of the guitar body and out the back. The holes then provided a point of reference for the location of the control cavity. I made a control cavity template by gluing up scrap pieces of MDF into the shape I wanted. Once again, I took advantage of the fact that the router bit would leave radiused corners.

The guitar body with all of its routing complete now weighs a mere 3 lb 2 oz. Next up is applying the Danish oil finish.

More on my first guitar build:

• Belly Contour and Forearm Cut Complete
• Guitar Neck and Steinberger Bridge in Place for First Test!
• Neck Pocket Complete
• Guitar Bridge and Neck Have Arrived
• Guitar Body Flush Trimmed and Edges Rounded Over
• Guitar Body Cut Out
• Making The Ergonomic Guitar Template
• Project Guitar Topic Thread: First Project Attempt - Ergonomic Guitar

Published Dec 18th, 2006 | Topic: Guitar Build #1