'58 Explorer - 1st build

[asgeirogm]

Hey everyone, long time lurker (until recently), started lurking this forum probably around 15 years ago when someone called something like Metal Matt was constantly making some sick metal axes, but after a few years of hibernation from lurking, I´m back and in the mood to build!

I've always loved the Explorer, as a Metallica man there was plenty of inspiration to be had on that front from Papa Het. So, some high level specs for my '58 Explorer:

• Mahogany body
• Mahogany neck with a scarf joint
• Crelicam ebony fretboard (Mad kudos to Madinter for providing a sustainable source of ebony)
• T-O-M bridge and tailpiece

So, as most builds, this started with sourcing wood. I don't want to contribute to unsustainable logging practices (either accidentally or on purpose) so I decided to pick up a mahogany table from a guy nearby (when I came to pick the table up, I learned that the guy is a furniture maker and he made it himself, I felt quite little bad so I didn't tell him the table would end up as a few guitars). He told me the species of the mahogany but I cannot for the life of me remember what he said, the guy told me it is "extinct", meaning it is probably actually endangered, but what ever. If someone has ideas, I would love to hear them.

So, I printed out the body shape and cut it out and tried out a bunch of different locations (on both sides of the table top) to find what I wanted to use. The table top is a three piece, so I could try it up and down in two different places, and on either side.

Cut it with a large buffer as the table top is 44mm and I want to take the thickness down to about 39mm with a router sled I just built, and I having never used one before, I wanted to be on the safe side in case of tear out. This is from the underside of the table top, so not really finished, and you can see some lacquer drops there. Can still see how great the grain is despite the lack of a proper finish.

Went to a local FabLab and laser cut my master template. 6mm MDF on the left didn't go so well, a bit too thick for the laser, so I picked up some 3mm plexi someone had so glamorously laser cut some glasses out of previously. I´ll have to redesign and recut that neck pocket template, the top spikes are too thin and short.

So,

So, having never used a router sled, I put a cutoff on it to get a feeling for how to use the sled. I had been waiting for over a week for it to stop raining and couldn't wait any more so I was hoping I would get at least a couple of hours of no raindrops to try the sled out on the offcut and then on the actual body.

A

Alas, it started raining so I gave up and went into my shed. I had held off on doing this there because of dust and the fact that I didn't have a shop vac for clean up, but at this point, I didn't care, I was going to use this router sled this day and that was the end of it! I do thankfully have the required PPE to protect my eyes, ears and lungs. Did it on the floor to minimize the dust going absolutely everywhere. Man, that really did a number on my lower back. You can see an almost full bucket of dust there to the side that I collected with my hands to get rid of most of it from the workpiece.

https://imgur.com/kylVG9o

Didn't have enough control of my depths, so it went down to 37mm. Whoopsies

https://imgur.com/ghahUP0The

My router sled is not precise enough, the stacked rails were maybe not such a good idea after all, but maybe my sled-thing and my base plate are not good straight enough. In any case, I ended up with a less than straight surface (more than just tooling marks), so did some work with a ROS to take care of most of it, but I'll have to do some more work later. Pity I don't have so many tools for that job, I borrowed a handplane from my neighbor that I might use, but I´m slightly scared of making it worse though since I don't know if it´s sharp enough, and I have not used one for 15 years. Let's see if I just do more with the ROS, especially since I can't afford to lose much more thickness if I make mistakes. Should I maybe get a card scraper?

The bottom part of the shed was covered in sawdust so I bought a vacuum and now it looks good again.

I do almost all my sawing outside on the garbage bins though, the shed gets really warm on sunny days, and I don't feel like cleaning dust all the time (I store some strollers and kids bikes and stuff in there as well, either moving all of that out of there or cleaning everything when sawing, both less than ideal options).

Sawed out my template out of MDF with my jig saw. Started on the bottom and noticed the blade had bent towards the body so I moved further away from the line on the rest of the template, both because I was afraid of the blade bending again, and to make room for making up for my previous mistake. I read a little about why the blade bends and it seems I was able to prevent it from bending on the rest of the template, so hopefully I can keep that going when I actually saw the body with the jig saw later.

Here's the plexi template on the MDF, sitting on the aforementioned garbage bins workbench, ready to be routed.

I've bought the Makita rt0700cx5j kit for all my other routing needs. For the thicknessing I used a router I bought used for next to nothing, but I wanted more control for the important stuff. I've 3d printed another plate and a knob as that should give me even more control. Let's see how that turns out when I get the chance to route the MDF template

Sanded the bottom a little to make sure it was flat

Here's my neck blank, made out of a horizontal support beam from the same table. I had a horrid time trying to saw the sides straight with my cheapo POS table saw. Not really a problem right now, but I´ll have to figure that out when I need to use it again (maybe 3d printing a featherboard might help). I don't know when I'll work more on the neck.

I'm also in the process of making a small cnc router with a rotary tool. I hope it'll be precise enough to be able to do inlays on the fretboard. I had most of the hardware needed for the cnc lying around from previous projects, and I have a 3d printer I built a couple of years ago, so I figured why not give it a try. Link to cnc instructable

[asgeirogm]

I can't figure out how to edit my post, but I just hope no one takes offense to the bit where I spoke about not contributing to unsustainable logging practices, all I meant was that I'm an environmentalist and I would like to only use sustainable wood if possible, but I also like reusing and giving things new life, so I chose to buy a table and use that for my guitar (also means I don't need to wait for it to acclimate, which is a plus). So, no offense meant to anyone as I know people use all kinds of wood for their builds, but in any case, I urge everyone to try their best to use sustainable wood when possible

Ásgeir

Edited September 11, 2021 by asgeirogm

[Akula]

Loving the build so far! I built a few guitars on a tiny budget last year, and the idea of buying some solid hardwood furniture instead of pine shelves, well it just never occured to me. Ingenious. So good on ya, mate! The timber looks amazing, and your process and design tells me this will be a great one to follow.

Also, sustainable timber is a big plus from me. I'm currently building two guitars for clients who've asked for Ebony fretboards - but if it were up to me, I would've used ebonised oak, or even richlite. I just found a possible source for Aussie reclaimed timber, and I'm all over it like a dog on peanut butter.

[Crusader]

6 hours ago, asgeirogm said:

Didn't have enough control of my depths, so it went down to 37mm. Whoopsies

Don't you just hate that? Yeah have to be careful with a Router. Personally I would have left it original thickness

By the way, great score on the table top, and I don't think anyone would be offended by the comment about sustainable timber. To me it looks like Sapele but from what the guy said it must be Honduras or something

Looking good so far!

[Prostheta]

22 hours ago, asgeirogm said:

So, as most builds, this started with sourcing wood. I don't want to contribute to unsustainable logging practices (either accidentally or on purpose) so I decided to pick up a mahogany table from a guy nearby (when I came to pick the table up, I learned that the guy is a furniture maker and he made it himself, I felt quite little bad so I didn't tell him the table would end up as a few guitars). He told me the species of the mahogany but I cannot for the life of me remember what he said, the guy told me it is "extinct", meaning it is probably actually endangered, but what ever. If someone has ideas, I would love to hear them.

 

I don't entirely have a lot of faith in the term "sustainable woods" either to be fair. They have to grow somewhere, and often they're still modifying local microclimates or displacing other species. "Sustainable" and "zero impact" are very different terms. I can't see how anybody might be offended by a simple admission of honesty and realisation of the impact building anything from wood.

It looks like Sapele (only "Mahogany" by name) to me because of the ribboning. If it is in fact a Swietenia Mahogany then it isn't extinct as such, only "commercially" extinct. It's available, but not in the same constant supply as how one would expect. Reuse and repurposing is an admirable way of sourcing material, and often it's better by the age of provenance anyway.

[asgeirogm]

On 9/11/2021 at 5:45 PM, Akula said:

I built a few guitars on a tiny budget last year, and the idea of buying some solid hardwood furniture instead of pine shelves, well it just never occured to me.

It's incredible how cheap you can get really good materials for dirt cheap by browsing Facebook Marketplaces and similar places for  tables, shelves and the like in nice woods, I highly recommend it.

On 9/11/2021 at 6:05 PM, Crusader said:

Don't you just hate that? Yeah have to be careful with a Router. Personally I would have left it original thickness

I know the original 58 explorer was about my original thickness, but I seeing as I couldn't chamber the body at all and that this mahogany is so damn heavy, I decided to bring the thickness down. I would probably perferred 39-40mm but I actually feel 37mm is okay.

 

On 9/12/2021 at 10:52 AM, Prostheta said:

I don't entirely have a lot of faith in the term "sustainable woods" either to be fair. They have to grow somewhere, and often they're still modifying local microclimates or displacing other species. "Sustainable" and "zero impact" are very different terms.

Good point In any case, if it's possible to at least not support logging of endangered species, then I'm all for that

[asgeirogm]

So, on with the project. I sawed out the shape as close to the line as I dared with the jigsaw (which was still a few mm). I sawed it all in one go, just in case I wanted to do something funny one day like create a semi-hollow body big boy Explorer, similar to what @Crusader is doing with the Big LP.

Sanded closer to the line with my random orbital sander and some 40 grit (I went a little further actually after this picture was taken)

On to template routing for the first time ever, routing from the master template to the 12mm MDF. So, I've learned that you have to be very, very careful when moving around with the router in hand, spinning at full speed. Bumped both the master and the 12mm MDF in a couple of places

Decided to try to repair it as if I wanted to use the laser cutter again at the FabLab to create a new master template, I would have to wait a week for the next open session and drive 30 minute each way. I'm too impatient for that. Mixed some dust and woodglue (second photo is Mahogany dust, ehh who cares)

Sanded it down a bit, created some more dust-glue-goo and sanded that down until I was happy with it

Used the "female" of the 6mm MDF I laser cut before to know when to stop sanding the horn

Added some superglue at one point to harden it up a little as it seemed maybe a little soft in some spots, but then I sanded it down so there was barely any left. Oh well, it seems good enough.

here

Template saved and glued to the body, ready for routing! I was actually quite nervous here because I didn't know what to expect, having never template routed hardwood before (only the 12mm MDF that went so splendidly).  I marked the directions I would be routing on the template to same myself from making stupid mistakes (This video from fellow PGer A D Finlayson helped a lot with preparing for this).

I had bought the longest pattern router bit CMT sells with a 8mm shaft, which still has only a 31,7mm cutting edge, so I'll do it in two passes. I first did the "conventional" cut, and it went splendidly! I then did the climb cut in the other direction from the waist, and while it was significantly more uncomfortable to control the router, it also went great! I just did many, many shallow passes (for both directions), as shallow as I basically could, so I was removing very little wood in each pass, and that worked really well.

I started to think "man this was easy, I wonder if the whole thing will go so well..." You can guess the answer to that... I decided to do the long curve on the bottom, which is a climb cut the entire way. Man, that router is tough to keep steady, especially when trying to do many shallow passes. I probably lost my concentration and the bit bumped into the wood in a couple of places, leaving some shallow but ugly tearout

https://imgur.com/h081IqL

This was the point in time when I really realized why so many people hate climb cutting (and that's leaving aside the risk of injury and all that). Then I had an epiphany; I had also bought the longest flush trim router bit CMT with an 8mm shaft, with a cutting edge of 40mm. I could just flip the thing over and do the previously climb cut edges with that from the other side (had actually seen the post from @curtisa where he/she was doing that. Thanks for the idea!). I tried that on the other side of the horn, again doing very shallow passes, taking as little material as I could in each pass. It went pretty well, but I got a little tearout, I must have bumped the bit into the wood. It's a little hard to see in this photo

I then did the rest of the long curve on the bottom, I actually had a some "ridges" after routing, I'm not sure if it's because I didn't prep the template edges with some watered down wood glue (I was impatient, if I did that, then I wouldn't have been able to start routing the body today). I can see where I have routed that the bearing digs a little into the template, so definitely in the future, I will smear those template edges like a bagel with cream cheese. I also did the other side of the heel and the heel itself with the long flush trim bit, and that went really well, but I forgot to take pictures. The end grain on the heel is absolutely beautiful, I'll have to take a picture of that tomorrow.

That's as far as I got today, I really hope I can squeeze in a some time to finish routing the body tomorrow. I'll then have to sand some of the edges as they are not very straight.

Any tips on how to fix those tearouts (the ones that can't be sanded out, that is)? I saw you did some nice fixes on tearout the LP4 (I think) @Crusader, any tips?

Edited September 17, 2021 by asgeirogm

[Prostheta]

Generally I would advise against taking deep cuts with long bits as the cutting edges create a lot of tool pressure every time they enter the material. The longest cutter I use is 25mm, and I rarely take that much at once. Shallow cuts mean you can alternate cutting direction between conventional and climb.

Tearout in endgrain is a pain. The "layers" of the wood are separated with chunks likely pulled out. Kind of like taking a chainsaw to the pages of a book at the side, it'll go in a mm or two. If you're aiming for a clearcoat finish, bummer. That'll be a difficult repair to make invisible. The final finish should guide how to work that area.

In general the way I visualise cutting direction is with a "clock of wood". The grain going horizontally. At 12 and 6 you go conventional. At 3 and 6 (endgrain) you go climb. The points in between those are "either" depending on how that area naturally traverses from adjacent cuts. Cutting climb cut is clenching at best, so this is exactly why I always use shallow cuts. It doesn't use the entire length of the cutter so is wasting good sharp carbide, so I try and buy short. My fave is a Klein 19,1mm diameter cutter with 11,1mm length on a 12mm shank. It powers through without issues, and multiple passes with a well-made bit avoid most of the stepping errors from a bearing following on a previous cut.

Yeah, that looks very much like Sapele. The blue-ness in the ribbon is very familiar.

[Crusader]

Wow a big hollow Explorer, that would be something to behold! And by the way you want to be very careful of tear-out with that

On the topic of tear-out, yes it can happen even when you are being as careful as possible. I have the same advice as Prostheta in doing shallower cuts and going in the other direction. I call it "going backwards" And another thing I do is rather than router along the line, go towards the line taking little bites (while going backwards) This might take some explanation to understand what I mean so I drew a picture...

It can be painstakingly slow but its better than having a bad result. I do this then skim along the line going backwards then forwards to be sure. By the way doing this you're not actually going backwards, its going in line with the grain considering its end-grain

And apart from the bit of tear-out its looking very good so far

Edited September 18, 2021 by Crusader

[Prostheta]

Shapes like an Explorer can be tricky since there are so many places with unsupported grain that the router can easily chunk off instead of slicing through. Climb cutting can be a pain when it bites near these as the whole structure of the wood is opened out and disrupted.

[nakedzen]

I had a few similar experiences with the router biting bits of template when having a slight lapse of concentration. I fixed this by installing the router into a cabinet, much safer and easier this way, imho. Got a free cabinet from classifieds, routed a cavity for this plate: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000283280834.html

 

[asgeirogm]

On 9/17/2021 at 10:16 PM, Prostheta said:

Generally I would advise against taking deep cuts with long bits as the cutting edges create a lot of tool pressure every time they enter the material. The longest cutter I use is 25mm, and I rarely take that much at once. Shallow cuts mean you can alternate cutting direction between conventional and climb

My cuts were as shallow as I could manage, the tearouts happened when either I wasn't being careful enough when adjusting my sitting position or something like that or when I wasn't being careful enough and didn't have enough control over the router and allowed it to bang into the body. I have found that it is much harder to route using the longer flush trim cutter because it's grabbing so much wood (even with very shallow passes). When you say "alternate cutting direction between conventional and climb", do you mean that you go back and forth on the same place on the body? Or do you mean that you alternative cutting direction, based on how the grain is (like you describe with the clock analogy)?

I did draw on the template which way I should route where, and I'm positive it was correct, it was just my unsteady hands that did the damage.

On 9/18/2021 at 5:50 PM, Crusader said:

I do this then skim along the line going backwards then forwards to be sure. By the way doing this you're not actually going backwards, its going in line with the grain considering its end-grain

I did exactly what you describe and show on the drawing, I just messed it up a little.

On 9/19/2021 at 7:36 AM, nakedzen said:

I fixed this by installing the router into a cabinet, much safer and easier this way, imho.

I've considered that, but I've also read horror stories about wood going flying when climb cutting and mishaps potentially throwing your hands towards the bit, which is beyond scary to me. In any case, can you share the dimensions of the mounting holes of this plate? The aliexpress listing doesn't have any dimensions anywhere for the screw holes for mounting the router.

[Prostheta]

As a rule, I always introduce the cutter in a motion like how a plane lands rather than perpendicular. I don't like hand routing because of how it works; you > tool > workpiece rather than my preferred option of a router table you > workpiece > tool. The dynamics of this make a big difference in control. I choose specific cutting directions to remove material from one area of a perimeter based on the grain direction and avoiding stressing unsupported short grain (areas where the grain enters and exits the workpiece over a short distance) as this leads to chunks getting blown out. I'd have to draw out a routing plan on paper, and if it helps I can do that.

That's a big cutter for that small router. I have that same one. The offset base is a big help. For that amount of remaining material around the perimeter, I wouldn't take more than 3-4mm of depth at any one time. Your first cuts were clearly the biggest because of the length of the cutter. Just remember not to let the bearing ride over the blown out parts otherwise it'll make the problem worse further in!

[Bizman62]

16 minutes ago, asgeirogm said:

I wasn't being careful enough when adjusting my sitting position or something like that

Now there's something that scares me!

In my opinion it's much safer to stand when using power tools. First, your body is making a steady tripod of your two feet on the floor and your hands leaning on the workpiece - yes, I count the hands as one as they're both holding either the tool or the piece against a solid workbench. Second, your entire body works as a fine tuned lever for moving the tool or piece. And finally, if something goes wrong you can jump back or duck much faster than if you'd first had to climb down off a chair.

[asgeirogm]

So, I fixed the tearout on the long curve on the bottom doing something that is probably quite unusual (at least I haven't seen it). I decided to just sand the template (and maybe a little of the body, but that's besides the point) and route again, taking parts of a millimeter at a time. I did this again and again until the tearout was all gone. I also adjusted the corner part of the template so that the transition from the long curve to the corner to the other side of the corner still looked good. I had a little trouble due to my own unstable hands but in the end, I'm very happy with the result, I only have to sand out some minor imperfections. Man I love that endgrain

Now it was time to take the template off to finish the second pass with the pattern bit. I ran into trouble with that as I bought some double sided tape and I wanted to try that out as opposed to the painters tape & CA glue method I had used before. Oh boy, I guess I put way too much tape on there as I wanted to make sure it wouldn't move, but the template was absolutely welded to the body. I tried heating the glue up with a clothing iron through the template. I didn't have big hopes for that since the template is 12mm and I doubt there was much heat reaching the glue, and it turned out to do absolutely nothing. I tried putting some floss between the template and the body and try to floss the glue into submission, but it barely made any difference, I could lift the edge only 1-2 mm away from the body in one place. I got my wife to help me by sticking a teflon spatula between the template and the body and then I tried prying it away apart while she jammed the spatula into the glue. Eventually we managed to get it loose, but I was too forceful at the end and the template came apart. Not a huge problem, I don't actually foresee that I'll use this template again anyway, if I make another explorer at some point, it will probably by a 76 or a 84 model.

So, finally time for finishing the routing and trying to fix the other tearout I had. mmmm endgrain

Again I did something unconventional to fix it (i.e. not just sanding it like a normal person). I moved the template back a little, clamped it in place and routed in two passes with the pattern bit.

I didn't take so many pictures but I then did this a couple more times, making sure the straight edge of the horn on the body was aligned with it's counterpart on the template, so the radius of the curve was kept intact. The reason I decided to fix the tearout like this instead of sanding is I felt I had more control over the final result like this, I was confident that it wouldn't tear out and I was worried if I sanded it that I might ruin the curve so it would become unpleasing to the eye. I expanded from only the place with the tearout all the way to the heel to keep the curve as close to the original radius as possible. I tried to keep the heel as intact as possible, but if it means my curve stays nice, I'll live with the heel being a tiny bit off down the road.

Success! Only a tiniest bit left of the tearout, which I'll sand out later when I sand the all the edges.

I'm honestly so, so happy with what I have made so far, it's so satisfying getting to this stage after dreaming of building this guitar for 15 years. It's so pretty!

I can't wait to see this thing with a finish to make that grain pop

I think I'll 3d print a Humbucker routing template tomorrow so I can route for the PUs and then I'll try to get down to the FabLab this week to plane the neck blank and laser cut my neck template so I can start working on the neck. I also have to order the fretboard and the electronics soon.

Edited September 20, 2021 by asgeirogm

[asgeirogm]

35 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

As a rule, I always introduce the cutter in a motion like how a plane lands rather than perpendicular.

I tried to do exactly that, my short comings were basically when I failed to do that and crash landed into the tarmac, but I've become better at that with a little practice and knowing my limitations and knowing a bit more about how the router behaves.

 

37 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

I don't like hand routing because of how it works; you > tool > workpiece rather than my preferred option of a router table you > workpiece > tool.

I think I will probably set up a router table in the near future and figure out what I like more.

 

21 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

In my opinion it's much safer to stand when using power tools. First, your body is making a steady tripod of your two feet on the floor and your hands leaning on the workpiece - yes, I count the hands as one as they're both holding either the tool or the piece against a solid workbench. Second, your entire body works as a fine tuned lever for moving the tool or piece. And finally, if something goes wrong you can jump back or duck much faster than if you'd first had to climb down off a chair.

It was a bit scary to be sitting with basically my face level with the bit, so if something went terribly wrong, I had both my legs kind of below the bit and my face level to it. The more I write about it, the more I feel like an idiot for doing it like that. My problems stem mostly from being 2 meters tall and my workbench being too low for me to be able to route the body standing up for such a sustained period of time, it would absolutely kill my back. But I will definitely have to do something, maybe just try prop my work surface up by a few centimeters.

[asgeirogm]

Forgot to mention something earlier, I figured out why I was getting some "ribbing" when routing, it was being caused by vibrations due to the guitar body not being clamped down well enough. If we think about the body being a clock (hmm where have I heard that analogy before :') ), I've clamped it at 3 and 9, I'm routing at 6 but there's nothing holding it down at 12, so it must have been jumping a little up and down on each side of the 3/9 axis. What I did was put some heavy crap on the 12 end of the body and my problem was solved. That also made routing just so much more easier when I didn't have to be fighting the vibrations.

I sure am learning a lot in a short amount of time here, both by doing and finding what works well and what doesn't; and by getting some really good info from you all. Damn this is fun stuff

[asgeirogm]

On another sidenote, these marks/knots/what ever they're called are bugging me a little... They have become more and more visible as I've reduced the thickness and sanded. Oh well, hopefully I will end up liking them

[Muzz]

That is a great looking Explorer body, the knots are very subtle, I like them, they show the connection of the guitar to nature.

[Crusader]

6 hours ago, Prostheta said:

As a rule, I always introduce the cutter in a motion like how a plane lands rather than perpendicular

That's a good way of putting it. Once I had posted the picture, etc. I knew it needed more explanation

 

5 hours ago, asgeirogm said:

So, I fixed the tearout on the long curve on the bottom doing something that is probably quite unusual (at least I haven't seen it). I decided to just sand the template...

That's a good way, or you could just sand the job if you didn't want to modify the template

[Prostheta]

It looks very good now. Perfect! Very pleased you managed to fix it. 

[nakedzen]

11 hours ago, asgeirogm said:

I've considered that, but I've also read horror stories about wood going flying when climb cutting and mishaps potentially throwing your hands towards the bit, which is beyond scary to me. In any case, can you share the dimensions of the mounting holes of this plate? The aliexpress listing doesn't have any dimensions anywhere for the screw holes for mounting the router.

I've felt much safer with the piece steady against the table rather than the router clumsily around corners. One mistep and the bit is in your groin.

I always position the workpiece and my hands so that catching is minimized as a risk, plus I wear heavy gloves. I've worked as a sheet metal worker in power plants, and many times having that small extra bit of protection has saved my hands.

The plate has multiple screw hole locations on the underside that you can drill through. It fit my Katsu router nicely, which I believe is the same size as Makita RT0700.

Edited September 21, 2021 by nakedzen

[Bizman62]

11 hours ago, asgeirogm said:

fixed the tearout on the long curve on the bottom doing something that is probably quite unusual

Reducing the size by a hair isn't unusual, we all do it for most every build! Moving the template a smidgeon was a clever way to fix the horn pit. Using the router rather than sanding definitely keeps the sides straight if you don't have a spindle sander. Well thought!

[mistermikev]

On 9/11/2021 at 2:53 AM, asgeirogm said:

 

I do almost all my sawing outside on the garbage bins though, the shed gets really warm on sunny days, and I don't feel like cleaning dust all the time (I store some strollers and kids bikes and stuff in there as well, either moving all of that out of there or cleaning everything when sawing, both less than ideal options).

Sawed out my template out of MDF with my jig saw. Started on the bottom and noticed the blade had bent towards the body so I moved further away from the line on the rest of the template, both because I was afraid of the blade bending again, and to make room for making up for my previous mistake. I read a little about why the blade bends and it seems I was able to prevent it from bending on the rest of the template, so hopefully I can keep that going when I actually saw the body with the jig saw later.

Here's the plexi template on the MDF, sitting on the aforementioned garbage bins workbench, ready to be routed.

I've bought the Makita rt0700cx5j kit for all my other routing needs. For the thicknessing I used a router I bought used for next to nothing, but I wanted more control for the important stuff. I've 3d printed another plate and a knob as that should give me even more control. Let's see how that turns out when I get the chance to route the MDF template

 

 

 

 

first - that is a lovely piece of mahog.  wasted as a table but brought to life as a guitar by you so... bravo.

second - I can't help but notice the cutout in your template.... I'm going to assume you will be making a secret stash spot for aviator sunglasses?  (right next to the diamond there)

third - whenever I see little knots or imperfections I think: "well no one will ever look at this and think it's veneer"!  It's those little imperfections I love because they prevent something from looking fake... to me anyway.  

nice build - rawk on.

[Drak]

Very nice so far, I've made a few guitars out of Tabletops myself.

But more to the point...

Reading your posts, I'm getting the vibe that you're under the impression the router is supposed to do all the work for you. That if your route job is done well enough, you won't need to sand the edges, or you shouldn't have to sand the edges, that the edge the router leaves behind is a fully finished edge.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but the way you talk about this leads me to believe you think edge-sanding is not needed if the routing is done correctly.

For example, the tearout you had that you corrected with by sanding the template and re-routing it clean...this is a clue to me that you're under the impression that if you 'do it right', ...there's no need to sand the edges. As I would have just taken care of that in the edge-sanding stage, everybody gets a little tearout here and there, that's pretty normal.

You will need to sand all edges, thoroughly. Usually takes me a few hours to just do that alone prior to entering finishing.

Most Explorers I believe clock in at 1.5", as a full-depth Explorer is usually completely unnecessary and Way too heavy to be useful to anyone.

1.5" or so is about correct. So 37mm is right about dead-on 1.5", the correct depth for an Explorer.

Putting some slight bevels on it to accentuate the edges would be most attractive and isn't that hard with all the long straight edges you have to work with, that makes beveling pretty easy as opposed to leaving it ' straight-up block' style.

Carry On!