Holes

Here is the guitar body. I put a rout in it for the neck pickup, I routed out the control cavity, and I drilled passages that will connect both pickup cavities and the control cavity.

I just learned that the “correct” thing is to drill slantwise from the bridge pickup hole into the control area. Thank God I didn’t know that. I might have tried it and gone right through the back of the guitar. Instead I drilled down the centerline of the guitar from the neck pocket, all the way to the future location of the bridge pickup. This connects the pickup holes. Then I drilled a 7/8″ jack hole and inserted a 1/4″ bit and continued on to the bridge pickup area. That will connect the control cavity to the pickups. I’ll run the neck pickup wire through the bridge rout and into the control area, and the bridge pickup wire will go straight into the control rout.

Using routers is a nightmare. They jump and bite and act crazy. It’s just barely conceivable that their poor behavior may have some tenuous relationship to my complete lack of skill. But I doubt it.

I think I’m going to make a couple of tiny bowtie inlays from maple and stick them in the border between the light walnut inlay and the guitar body, above the neck pocket. This will make the pocket inlays look like something I did on purpose, instead of a massive screwup. Once it’s done, I’ll delete all Internet references to my mistakes and claim everything went perfectly. No one will ever know. Shhh.

For some reason, I inherited a bag of silver coins. I might inlay a couple of liberty dimes into the guitar, if I can find two from the years my parents were born.

Every choice I made added a new level of complexity to the project. Because of the rear control rout, I have to drill potentiometer and switch holes, and I have to create a walnut cover for the rout, and I have to cut a rabbet into the guitar to receive the cover. Ordinarily, you just make the hole in the front of the instrument and slap in a prefab metal cover that holds the controls.

Here is my conclusion: if you choose to make a clear-coated bookmatched Telecaster with a rear rout, you will multiply the woodworking time by about five. Seriously, I could make a solid-color body in two days.

The TV Jones pickups also added work. I had to figure out where to put them, and I had to use a special routing template. The templates I bought have holes for Fender-style pickups, but they’re useless for TV Jones jobs, which don’t even fit standard humbucker holes.

I’m hoping I won’t have to recess the Bigsby into the top, but after all the crap I’ve routed, it probably would not be a challenge. Maybe I should do it just to be a wise guy.

Sad news: I’ve learned that you can make a guitar neck using a router and a jig. This is sad, because it means I will probably go crazy and make a neck eventually. I’ve realized that fat necks work very well with electric guitars, even though they’re a horror on acoustics. I ordered a big neck from Warmoth, but I don’t think it’s as fat as the one on my amazing Burny LP clone, so I’m not totally happy.

I went nuts and ordered a jointer/planer. Then I came to my senses and cancelled the order. I improved my planer-jointing technique, and I decided to keep my money. Then I went nuts again. The planer/jointer is once again on the way. I face-jointed a couple of really squirrelly mahogany boards I stole from someone’s trash, and it was a nightmare, so the new machine started looking good again.

I got the planer working really well, apart from the problems with twisted wood. I learned how to completely eliminate snipe. I knew it was a good idea to pull up “a little” on boards as they entered and exited, but by experimenting, I have found that snipe disappears if you pull up a WHOLE LOT. You’re trying to simulate the action of the powerful rollers that hold the wood down, so you really have to apply yourself. I had been afraid that pulling up hard would drive the wood into the blades, but that doesn’t happen, because the roller closest to your hand prevents it. I guess if you have a three-foot-long board with increased leverage, you can apply too much force, but on a twenty-inch workpiece, you can pull like crazy.

I’m going to try to get the routing done today. Time to go out and buy even more piles of double-side tape, to hold stuff in place while I work.

If I can make my own necks, I may make a new guitar with headstock and body shapes that are completely original. Probably similar to a Telecaster, but with better fret access from above. I hate the Telecaster control plate. It’s inconvenient and jams the selector switch up against the volume knob. I’d probably rout from the rear again.

Wish me luck. More accurately, pray I don’t screw this up any more than I already have.