johnuk Posted October 10, 2003 Report Share Posted October 10, 2003 Oh my g-awd I'm knackered! [You'll find out why in a second] I've just realised I can't post ACSII style pictures here, ignore the words [space] I bought a 1/4" router bit last night to set about my guitar to be with. I have chosen a design for my guitar where-by the neck travels all the way thru the body but rather than being between the sides of the guitar, the neck sits in a pocket routed into the body. I believe this is called a deep set neck or something similar. Brake out the ACSII art! Top down of body: ------........------ |XXX|...... |XXX| |XXX|...... |XXX| |XXX|...... |XXX| |XXX|...... |XXX| |XXX|...... |XXX| |XXX|...... |XXX| |XXX|...... |XXX| |XXX|...... |XXX| ------........------ Side of body: --------- [ space ] --------- |XXXXX|..............|XXXXX| |XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX| |-----------------------------| The scaling is quite far off on the second picture but it's not too bad. The channel is 146mm wide and runs the length of the guitar down to 17 - 19mm in depth. First of all, I route that entire thing with 1/4" bit, okay, not toooo bad. Then I began to block sand the routing marks off the cavity. Roughly 5 hours of sanding later, I'm were I am now. I can see it taking another 5 hours at least to block sand the cavity perfectly square. I have roughly 3-4mm left before there will be no neck / body step (not including the finger board). So I have about 1 - 2mm left to leave me with a 1-2mm step. I thought now would be a good time to ask your opinions on how I should level the cavity off. I have at my disposal: - Lots of time Router Belt Sander & Orbital Sander I didn't want to use the router anymore because it's prooving to be a real pain in the ass! I know that the top of my body is flat, so I started getting insane ideas for neat ways of getting the cavity perfectly level by sanding. More ACSII art! Special cavity tool: |**********************| Long piece of wood ************************ [..space..] ***** Short block attached to bottom of wood [..space..] ***** [..space..] SSSSS Sanding paper I thought I would press the long piece against the body top and then sand until the long piece was resting against the body top, meaning it was at the correct depth. I don't have a hand plane, but would one be accurate enough for this kind of work? Thanks again and sorry it's so long! I'm very new to all this wood working stuff, I'm much more used to metal, so I need to ask a load of questions! John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krazyderek Posted October 10, 2003 Report Share Posted October 10, 2003 ummm... if the top of the body is flat then routing is going to be the easiest way to make the bottom of your cavities flat, but it also means you need templates that you can angle/wedge... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnuk Posted October 10, 2003 Author Report Share Posted October 10, 2003 The thing is that I've already routed out the pocket. I didn't want to go right up to the line in case the router dug into it at all so I kept a few mm away. The cavity is too wide for the router's base to span, so it'd be very difficult to put the router back into the cavity because the sides of the cavity are only around 2" thick; the router can tip easily on them. Which is why I've kind of ruled it out. John P.S. Why don't they make routers that have fences on both sides, then you could pin the router perfectly in place even over a cavity! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daveq Posted October 10, 2003 Report Share Posted October 10, 2003 I didn't want to go right up to the line in case the router dug into it at all so I kept a few mm away I can understand wanting to keep things on the safe side but in this case routing up to the line would really be best. From my experience, the router has a much better shot at keeping things flat/straight than hand tools. I just recently built a body very similar to what you are doing. I won't go into how I did it since it's too late to help you. How about placing two boards across the cavity to support the router? Have them run parallel to a side of the cavity (do it once for each side). One board will have to be lined up carefully (and have a straight edge) to act as the template and the other only there to hold the router. Once the sides are routed, you can deal with the center of the cavity in a similar way but won't have to be as careful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krazyderek Posted October 10, 2003 Report Share Posted October 10, 2003 ok, to make the router's base bigger, get a sheet of plywood, plexiglass, or metal and make a new base plate for the router in this case a larger cirlce or square and then drill the holes from mounting it and a hole in the center for the bit to stick out of. do you have a template bit? like a straight cutter with a bearing on the shaft? cause like dave said set up some rails or straight edges (metal straight edge available from home depot) on your lines and then use your router in gradual steps to get down to the depth you want... it'll be alot faster and more accurate then routing out the cavity rough then hand sanding the rest. Or if you can't afford or don't want to mess around with that, get a good straight steel ruler, some chisels, various sandpaper and have fun Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnuk Posted October 10, 2003 Author Report Share Posted October 10, 2003 Thanks for the help! I should have thought of that myself, it's sooo easy compared to what I was thinking of doing. We have a huge stockpile of scrap wood and stuff out in the garage so I'll make up a new base for the router tomorrow. The router I have is a 25 pound one made by some under paided poor guys out in the East. Straight out of the box there were problems with it, not big ones but annoying ones. The fence screws out right refused to go down one of the threads that locks it in place. The fence guide's chroming was already blistering off because the metal had most likely been chromed with rust on it. The depth lock sometimes decides to de-lock itself mid routing! That's a really annoying one. The depth gauge itself sometimes vibrates itself loose. And to complete the router, the dust extraction port decides when it will and when it won't actually extract any dust. What was worrying me was the depth problems, because even though I realised the router was giving me a much more accurate surface in general, even now and again it would go insane and decide to do something else. I didn't want it to do that and then leave a big piece missing where I would need to glue the neck to the body. Fixing the base should solve a lot of these problems. Out of interest Dave, how did you cut the channel for the guitar you mentioned? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.