Super Turbo Deluxe Custom
Epic Member
- Messages
- 8,318
Short answer, to have more range of depth when routing.
A friend of mine loves P-90s and owns none. My latest build has one, and he drooled all over the sound of it. I said, "Man it's 2010, there's no reason we can't put one in yours." I ordered a Stewmac P-90 template. Great, but not so great. The template itself is only about 1/8" thick, and the from the ball bearing that rides the wall of the template to the end of the bit is about 1" on the bits I have. What if I want to go shallower or deeper (That's what she said)? An 1/8" of template with a ball bearing just a bit bigger doesn't leave much room to work with. Not to mention, the small gap between the ball bearing and the cutting area is no man's land. Too high, the cutter is cutting your template. Too low, the template does no good. With the ball bearing right on the money on the template, there's about 1/32 to 1/16 that isn't cut. So here's what I did:
With a 1'x1' piece of partical board, I marked centerlines and matched the center lines of the Stewmac template. I set up a guide and made passes with a 3/4" bit. This stuff is soft enough, other than the straight edge with the guide, I free handed it, staying in the lines, and adjusting it lower with each pass until it was through to the scrap piece on the bottom.
Stewmac and other sites suggested taking the bulk of the work out with a bigger bit then going back with smaller ones to fine tune. So the Stewmac template was then 2-sided taped to the particale board using the center lines. I made passes with a ½” bit with ball bearing then going down to the finishing ball bearing bit of 3/8”. Of course because of the reasons stated for making this template, It had the little uncut area that was the size of the space between the cutting area and ball bearing. So when finished with one side, I removed the Stewmac template and turned it over and routed form the back.
When done, there was no area of the sharpie outline left and no discernable area of machine marks - an even cut all the way through, and the pickup fit like a glove in the new template. Most importantly, the width of the new template allows more range for multiple passes at different depths and allows a custom depth rather than just the depth of the bit.
I ordered a W pick guard with P-90 in the neck. When it arrives, I’ll install the pickguard and place the P-90 cover in it assuring alignment. I’ll then mark the body with sharpie through the pickguard, remove, then line up my template with the sharpie outline. Voila. I’ll take picks then too.
A friend of mine loves P-90s and owns none. My latest build has one, and he drooled all over the sound of it. I said, "Man it's 2010, there's no reason we can't put one in yours." I ordered a Stewmac P-90 template. Great, but not so great. The template itself is only about 1/8" thick, and the from the ball bearing that rides the wall of the template to the end of the bit is about 1" on the bits I have. What if I want to go shallower or deeper (That's what she said)? An 1/8" of template with a ball bearing just a bit bigger doesn't leave much room to work with. Not to mention, the small gap between the ball bearing and the cutting area is no man's land. Too high, the cutter is cutting your template. Too low, the template does no good. With the ball bearing right on the money on the template, there's about 1/32 to 1/16 that isn't cut. So here's what I did:
With a 1'x1' piece of partical board, I marked centerlines and matched the center lines of the Stewmac template. I set up a guide and made passes with a 3/4" bit. This stuff is soft enough, other than the straight edge with the guide, I free handed it, staying in the lines, and adjusting it lower with each pass until it was through to the scrap piece on the bottom.
Stewmac and other sites suggested taking the bulk of the work out with a bigger bit then going back with smaller ones to fine tune. So the Stewmac template was then 2-sided taped to the particale board using the center lines. I made passes with a ½” bit with ball bearing then going down to the finishing ball bearing bit of 3/8”. Of course because of the reasons stated for making this template, It had the little uncut area that was the size of the space between the cutting area and ball bearing. So when finished with one side, I removed the Stewmac template and turned it over and routed form the back.
When done, there was no area of the sharpie outline left and no discernable area of machine marks - an even cut all the way through, and the pickup fit like a glove in the new template. Most importantly, the width of the new template allows more range for multiple passes at different depths and allows a custom depth rather than just the depth of the bit.
I ordered a W pick guard with P-90 in the neck. When it arrives, I’ll install the pickguard and place the P-90 cover in it assuring alignment. I’ll then mark the body with sharpie through the pickguard, remove, then line up my template with the sharpie outline. Voila. I’ll take picks then too.
