cad The Lancaster

[Prostheta]

I usually have the fingerboard as an entire layer separate from the neck. Let's manipulate the lines in the Neck layer and use those to make our Fingerboard layer. Firstly, a new Layer with a Z value of 4:

 

Time for a new tool! The "Line Length" tool. This shrinks or extends a line along its length. I use this a lot for basic geometry. A lot of complex tools exist, however I think that using the most basic ones to achieve complex results gives you a better understanding of the nuts and bolts rather than a black box approach.

With the Line Length tool, you click a line towards one end or another. That is the end which you manipulate. For this, I want to extend the neck side lines so they intersect the zero fret and the neck end line we just drew.

 

Click on:

 

Click to drop it:

 

Now repeat around the neck:

[Prostheta]

New tool time! "Irregular Polygon"

 

This draws a series of points linked as lines and closed to make an irregular polygon of course. Select that, and ensure that Fingerboard is the active layer, plus you have Intersect as the only active snap mode:

 

Going around the neck, create a polygon of four points where the neck lines intersect:

 

Finally either right click and select Finish or click....

[Prostheta]

The neck layer can be turned off and the geometry inside used later when we need it....

I think for this I'll have rounded corners on the fingerboard. Sharp corners are pretty modern-looking.

New tool time! Fillet2D:

 

Filleting creates radiused corners where two lines meet. Simply select the tool (turn off snaps with No Snap) and enter the desired corner radius in the Inspector Bar. I think 5mm is good since the centre of the last fret is 7mm from the end:

 

Now simply click either side of the corner you want to radius. First click (highlighted for clarity):

 

Second click et voilà:

 

Repeat on the other side:

[Prostheta]

Depending on what your personal preference of pickup is, you should get the dimensions first before building! Preferably take your OWN measurements from the product itself and not from specs. I'm going to direct-mount these pickups, so the cavities will be relatively tight.

Create a new layer ("pickup routs") and draw in a 38mm x 70mm rectangle. This is about 1.5mm larger than a Seymour Duncan '59 which I'll likely use if Bare Knuckles are not on the table.

 

I'll give these a 4mm radius on the corners:

[Prostheta]

The rest of the dimensions for the pickup rout are not necessary since it's better to have universal pickup routing templates for humbuckers, etc. Than drawing them into a plan. At the most, they should indicate pickup rings as this might be important if they are meant to butt up to the fingerboard, etc.

Turning back on the GUIDES layer, I used the "Nearest on Graphic" snap....

 

....to pick up and place the routs to where I want them. I did this manually since I have no particularly strong beliefs about anything other than basic pickup positioning. It might be important for true vintage instruments whose character is so well-known that a few mm matter, but not here.

 

So, the end of play for today!