Building my first body.

[line6man]

I got my Alder practice body today, and traced Russel's Strat template with carbon paper.

(Don't mind the dark spots on the right side, those are fingerprint smudges from the carbon paper.)

Edit:
I got impatient and decided to cutout part of the shape.
I left the top of the blank untouched, because I want to route for the neck pocket first, then saw and sand the shape. :blob7:

 

[DangerousR6]

Looks good so far, but just one pup.... :icon_scratch:

 

[line6man]

Looks good so far, but just one pup.... :icon_scratch:

I traced on the pickup route because if I choose a single coil neck pickup, I can just drop the routing template right over that spot, without having to measure anything.

I'm undecided on pickups at this point. There will be a humbucker at the bridge, but I don't know whether I should go with an SXH setup, an SXH setup with a slanted neck pickup, an SSH setup, or an HSH setup.

 

[SustainerPlayer]

Interesting. 

 

[rapfohl09]

Looking great! Don't get too frustrated with your first one (as I did) about trying to make it perfect. They are all learning experiences. I can't wait to get home on summer break in just a week or so and get back to work on some of mine.

And it's Russell* :icon_jokercolor:
(just bustin your chops)

Edit: I meant to ask, how did you cut it out?

 

[line6man]

Looking great! Don't get too frustrated with your first one (as I did) about trying to make it perfect. They are all learning experiences. I can't wait to get home on summer break in just a week or so and get back to work on some of mine.

And it's Russell* :icon_jokercolor:
(just bustin your chops)

Edit: I meant to ask, how did you cut it out?

I cutout the rough shape with a bandsaw, then used a spindle sander to clean up the saw marks.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

I'd strongly recommend the Stew Mac Floyd templates also.
The reason the bit manufacturer doesn't want you to use so many bearings is because the more you add, you run the risk of reducing the amount of bit shaft inside the chuck of the router, could be a safety risk of having the bit fly off at you the moment you run the router and bit up against the wood you intend to route.

 

[Cagey]

And at 36,000 RPM, getting hit with a router bit is going to be a lot like taking hand grenade shrapnel. Won't be any fun at all.

 

[line6man]

I'd strongly recommend the Stew Mac Floyd templates also.
The reason the bit manufacturer doesn't want you to use so many bearings is because the more you add, you run the risk of reducing the amount of bit shaft inside the chuck of the router, could be a safety risk of having the bit fly off at you the moment you run the router and bit up against the wood you intend to route.

I have the StewMac Floyd Rose template set, as well as the template for the recess.

Funny how the Floyd template is a two piece set, while the recess is only one template, yet both are the same price. StewMac's template pricing seems a bit arbitrary. Also worth noting is it costs more for a blank template than a pickup template. Somehow it costs more for them to cut off a square of plexiglass than to route a funny shape in it? :dontknow:

Anyways, here is today's little bit of progress.

The damn neck pocket came out a tad large, despite my three practice runs on plywood.
I think that between taking the first few passes with a shimmed template, removing the shims (Repositioning the template ever-so-slightly...), and then taking the final passes with the bearing right up against the wood, the pocket must have widened a bit somewhere along the way.
It's still a good pocket, the neck doesn't shift around too much, but I definitely want to work on getting an extremely tight pocket for the real thing.

The other issue is I burned the pickup route. I think I was moving the router too slowly, and perhaps I should have been using the 3/8" bit instead of the 1/2" bit. I'll try moving faster, and using the 3/8" bit for the bridge pickup.

Now I'm worried about the aesthetics of a single coil pickup on the real build. I've only see direct-mounted singles in pictures, and I've always thought they looked bad (With or without pickup rings.), but seeing it in real life really confirms how much I hate that look. :sad:
I like the tone of singles, but I don't know if I can deal with the aesthetic.
I was thinking about having a custom shaped pickup made, similar to the ones EMG sells, without the V shaped protrusion at the base, where the leads exit.
Who thinks that would look nice?

 

[DangerousR6]

I think the EMG singles look way better than the traditional strat style. I've never liked the direct mount look of the single strat pup wither... :dontknow:

 

[rapfohl09]

I think the EMG singles look way better than the traditional strat style. I've never liked the direct mount look of the single strat pup wither... :dontknow:

+1, I am getting nervous as to how I am going to mount the neck pickup on my tele. I hate single coil pickups with rings...

 

[line6man]

Yay! The Walnut and Bubinga came today! :toothy12:

The Bubinga is too intense to be photographed! I'm having a really hard time getting a good picture, because my camera totally overexposes.

 

[Cagey]

Holy mackerel! That is some miserable-looking shit! I've seen better examples of rotten crap in the yard after the dog ate out the cat litter box! What were you thinking when you ordered that garbage?

You're lucky you're a member of such a high-class forum with people who are looking out for you, because I'll tell what I'm gonna do. I've got some fairly clear fuel pine here that I think you'll really appreciate. You send me that stuff to feed the fireplace, and I'll send you the pine. No, no... I don't need any money to come with it, just call it a favor for a friend. I'll burn that stuff up, and nobody needs to know where it came from.

I'm sure you would do the same for me, so we'll just call it goodwill and be sure to pay it forward.

 

[bagman67]

You're all heart, Cagey.

 

[Cagey]

No, I'm part ass hole, too <grin>

 

[line6man]

Holy mackerel! That is some miserable-looking shitee! I've seen better examples of rotten crap in the yard after the dog ate out the cat litter box! What were you thinking when you ordered that garbage?

You're lucky you're a member of such a high-class forum with people who are looking out for you, because I'll tell what I'm gonna do. I've got some fairly clear fuel pine here that I think you'll really appreciate. You send me that stuff to feed the fireplace, and I'll send you the pine. No, no... I don't need any money to come with it, just call it a favor for a friend. I'll burn that stuff up, and nobody needs to know where it came from.

I'm sure you would do the same for me, so we'll just call it goodwill and be sure to pay it forward.

Sorry, I'm not interested in Pine unless it has large knots and a nice warp to it. :blob7:

 

[Cagey]

Geez! Do I have to do everything myself? Ok. I'll take a few showers with the stuff and set it out in the sun in between, and that ought to twist it into something even Gibson could love. I can't put knots in it, but I could write all over it with a fat-tip Sharpie. That ought to make it easier to make sense of once it's finished than that squiggly, curly, multi-colored wood grain slop. I'm a pretty good printer, after all I got 6 credits of collige.

 

[line6man]

Geez! Do I have to do everything myself? Ok. I'll take a few showers with the stuff and set it out in the sun in between, and that ought to twist it into something even Gibson could love. I can't put knots in it, but I could write all over it with a fat-tip Sharpie. That ought to make it easier to make sense of once it's finished than that squiggly, curly, multi-colored wood grain slop. I'm a pretty good printer, after all I got 6 credits of collige.

Alright, that's fair enough. Just carve some gang signs on it with a screwdriver and bring it to fingerpaint time at your kid's preschool and we'll trade.

 

[Cagey]

I don't remember where my kid's preschool was. In fact, he's getting married day after tomorrow and I gotta wear a pink tie! I might even hafta dance! Of course, as miserable as all that sounds, I'm going to have to be polite to his mother, the bird-brained slut-bitch whore from hell. Why I ever married that succubus is a mystery for the ages.

Oh! Oh! Ooooohhh!​

 

[rapfohl09]

Oh and about that neck pocket, I just ordered a template from a dealer on ebay that I have gotten good templates from and will let you know how that one works. It isn't suppose to be oversized or anything, so maybe that would be a better option.