Hello everybody,
Haven't built a single guitar for the last 7 years.. Suddenly I have a little more time on my hands, and this is what happens. I have been posting the build process on another board, but I figured I'll post it here for old times sake.
So this one will be a thinline-esque, bookmatched roasted flamed maple top and back, roasted birdseye maple neck and fretboard, Kinman Bridge-Blaster and P90, Graphtech Ghost tunomatic coupled with a Bigsby B16 tailpiece and Hipshot locking tuners.
I'm a bit rusty, short in workspace (my balcony will have to do) and in power tools, so this isn't going to be the fastest build ever..
Anyway, here we go:
The maple (God bless Canada)
Free-hand design on a piece of plywood. It's not a one-for-one telecaster, it's ever so slightly rounder in the lower bout, and the neck joint is obviously different.
F-hole design
I transferred the f-hole's shape to a thicker piece of MDF, did some final shaping, then routed it to the body template (didn't take pictures of the template making, but it's pretty straight forward) using a 3/8" ball bearing bit, and finishing it off with a 1/4" bit, with the shank riding the MDF as a guide.
Same thing for the second f-hole
Cut and shaped the pickguard from some creme plastic (I know it seems early for this step, but I wanted to make sure the ideas that seem great in my twisted mind work in reality)
And here it is with a sketch of the layout. The f-hole will go through the pickguard.
I like it.