Best way to make pickup templates

[Czar]

Does anyone have any tips for making pickup templates? I need to mkae a template for Stringray style humbuckers.

Also, any tips on tranferring paper drawing onto plywood for accurate body templates?

Thanks guys

[tdog]

Go to the Bartolini website. Here you can download their catalogue. The drawings of the pickups match the actual pickup dimensions. Print the drawing of the appropriate pickup and use this as a template for your template.....contact cement the drawing to plywood or plexiglass and carefully cut out you template....remember to allow for a little wiggle room.

http://www.bartolini.net/productinfo.htm

[Czar]

Awesome!

Thanks tdog!

[tdog]

Czar.....Let me know how it works for you.

[GREGMW]

Print the drawing of the appropriate pickup and use this as a template for your template.....contact cement the drawing to plywood or plexiglass and carefully cut out you template....remember to allow for a little wiggle room.

Did this work OK ? Its a good idea ....

How accurate do these templates need to be.?

I am going to give this idea a shot as I have just screwed up one routing it out with the Dremel..

I should have never trusted the plastic router base/guides to be accurate. There seems to be a lot of flex in it!

Greg

[Primal]

Probably the biggest set back in building my bass was trying to make the MM pickup template. I had printed multiple copies out trying to get it just right but finally just traced the pickup. I then cut the inside out with my band saw and fine tuned the template using flat and round rasps. After that I got a new piece of wood and used the template I made to route out another template. This got rid of the cut I had to make to get to the inside of the tracing. Once I got the new template routed out, I fined tuned it again with rasps.

Thats how I did it. It may not be the best way but it worked fairly well for me. Hope this helps.

[sliverfinger]

To transfer paper drawings onto plywood, I use transfer paper. (It is ink impregnated, just like the kind in receipt books.) Using a good straight edge for the straight lines (i.e. guitar neck). Take your time along the curves, and you'll have an exact replica. I purchase my transfer paper at [url=http://www.workshopsupply.com] It is available in large sheets, enough to trace several full-size guitar drawings.

[Czar]

I tried it and it worked pretty good. The screw "ears" is where I kept screwing up. I got pretty frustrated and just decided to take a shot at winding my own custom shape pickups. I wanted to experiment with different designs anyway...