Epoxy Templates?

[Juntunen Guitars]

I have been thinking of ways to get some routing templates made for control cavities and just thought of this idea. I free hand route control cavities but the lip that the cover sits on has always been hard for me to get acurate with the covers I make and I use the same control cavity route on all my rear routed bodies so I thought maybe I could make a cover that's about a half inch thick and put it on the plywood sheet.

Then using a ball bearing bit, route around the edge of it so I have an over sized hole that it fits in wiht plenty of room.

Then pour epoxy in the hole to fill in around the cover.

Surface sand it and have a semi clear template. I would then have a template that I could sit over the control cavity and have a shape I know I will always get out of the route. So would this work ok or am I missing something?

I got this idea from building canoe paddles

Edited May 30, 2010 by Juntunen Guitars

[Prostheta]

Just get a router inlay bushing set ;-)

[Juntunen Guitars]

Just get a router inlay bushing set ;-)

a what? ... I am trying to find ways to save money, i'm cheap and poor plus I have epoxy that I can use

[Prostheta]

I think that I see what you're getting at. Another option is to rout the cavity cover hole to match the cover, then glue in posts to the cavity so the cover can sit on them? I think the epoxy method could work, but it depends on your skill with epoxy and the inevitable (time consuming!) cleanup.

Router inlay bushing set (or at least, how to use one): http://www.routerworkshop.com/inlay0802.html

[jaycee]

I thought about trying different methods for a while , but in the end opted for this solution

Template It does save a lot of hassle and time . And there are different shapes available

Edited June 14, 2010 by jaycee

[Juntunen Guitars]

I thought about trying different methods for a while , but in the end opted for this solution

Template It does save a lot of hassle and time . And there are different shapes available

Last time I bought from AIguitars the template came broken ... and when I called them and they put the phone down a guy said "the guy with the broken template called" which to me meant they knew it was broken but when they picked the phone back up they were nice enough to say they would ship me new one for free.

The reason I am wondering about this is because I use different control cavities that take up as little space as possible and require little routing, not these big holes with a cover over them. Except for my seven string build, I got a little carried away there.

[Mattia]

Get an inlay bushing set. It'll be cheaper than futzing around with epoxy and the like all the time, and give you a much, much better fit.