Hey

Boy, I haven't posted in a while. The main thing that was giving me trouble was the truss rod channel. I was planning on using an edge guide to route it, but then I learned that my router doesn't work with an edge guide. So, my next plan was to route freehand, and clean it up with sandpaper. That's how I started, and I think it theoretically would work if that's what you had to do. However, I started using a mill, and it works much, much better. It fits the truss rod just about perfectly in terms of width... However, it needs to be made just slightly deeper: I also got a pickup coil wound in the meantime.

What I was planning was similar but a little different (especially since the top is glued and can't be removed any more). I was planning on first having the top up, and use a pattern bit with the follower bearing on top. I would use that to shape as much of the bottom as possible. After that, I planned on flipping it over, and using a pattern bit with the follower bearing on the bottom, and using the part of the bottom that had been shaped as a template.

I hollowed out the mahogany bottom... And glued the two halves together! I'm not sure how well this will work, but my plan is to use the top half as a template to route the bottom half to shape.

I'm not surprised there's confusion. I have access to three drill presses, and they're all different as far as depth stops go. The one I chose to use for hogging out my cavities was, not coincidentally, the one I thought had the easiest to use depth stop. That one had some big bolts / washers on a threaded cylinder. I put some wood as deep as I was drilling (I was leaving 1/4" behind, so I used 1/4" plywood) under the bit, then set the washers to that position. They would hit a stop when I lowered the press, so the press could absolutely go no lower. I realize that sounds confusing. I looked through my photos to see if I took a picture, and unfortunately it looks like I didn't. Another one had a depth stop on the side that could be set with a set screw. Unfortunately, if you pulled hard enough, you could go deeper than you set it. When I Google Image Search "drill press depth stop", the first few that come up look like this one. That drill press had an table with an adjustable height, and if I was forced to use it, I probably would have needed to set the table height to get the depth set. Obviously not ideal, or as accurate (when you would tighten the table down, the height would change slightly), and since you'd have to lower the drill as far as it possibly could go, it would even take longer. The third one was a really small one. It had a threaded cylinder with a small bolt, kind of like a depth stop that some routers have. I suppose it's similar in principle to the first one, but it looks quite different.

Thanks for the comments. I think I might agree, the sound hole might look a little better if it was a little longer and a little more tapered. However, there is a reason it is what it is. I originally used a 1/2" diameter bit, and it wouldn't fit very far into the soundhole template at all, and it didn't look very good. Then I got a 3/8" bit, so that's what the taper is now. At the very least, it looks a lot better than it did with the 1/2" bit. I'm not even sure how I'd change it now. I have a 1/8" bit that I could try to use freehand, but I'm sure I'd screw it up like that.

When I looked at that picture, I noticed that the waist on the bass side had an unnatural straight part, and the sound hole didn't look quite right, either. I tried to make them a little more curvy. Hopefully, I'll be able to start on the bottom tomorrow.

I already learned one lesson from experience. I am making a semi-hollow, and I made this template for the chambers. Now, what's the point of a template? You push the router against it, and it cuts the wood to the shape of the template. But what do you think happens when you push against that thin strip of wood on the bass side? Yeah, it's so thin that it deforms. Not to mention, where the heck is the router supposed to sit when routing around that edge? How is it supposed to reach the middle of the chambers? What I should have done was, make two completely different templates for the outer body (thankfully, I still had my template for that) and the chambers. The chamber template should have been in a larger rectangle for support and room for the router. And I could have also considered having some extra wood on the bass side to hold the router when routing out that large chamber, and then a second template for getting rid of those extra bits of wood later. It was quite easy to route the smallest chamber, and to some degree the middle sized one, because there was plenty of support for the router (I solved part of the problem by putting wood outside of the template). Finally, make sure the template is thick enough. For the outside of the body, it doesn't really matter, but for a chamber template, you need to make sure you have room for the router bit to fit inside without going too deep while the bearing rides against the template.

I finished the chambers in the top, rough cut it, and routed it to shape with the template. I'll have my work cut out for me cleaning up the top.

I got the bandsaw blade changed. It did have literally no teeth left at all. One thing different about it compared to what some people are used to here is that it's used for cutting metal a lot. Still, I asked a machinist what could have caused it to wear so badly. He said that some people try to use it to cut way too fast. So, I'll try not to make that mistake. I got the chambers in the top cut out with a Forstner bit. And the soundhole, too, but I'm not completely happy with how it was routed, so I'll sand it a little by hand after making that chamber a little deeper (so the wood will be thinner)

No, killemall8's intuition was right. Its scorch marks. I thought it might have been because I was cutting through so much wood, and at a weird angle, but it's really just because our bandsaw sucks. Anyway, I made some progress, but I greatly underestimated how much time this would all take if I thought I could have finished up the body before this week. On the plus side, I got a new camera for better pictures! My jig for planing wood: Part way through planing the mahogany bottom. I think it turned out nice: The planed maple top: It's obvious that it's three pieces, because of the grain and color change. Maybe when it's stained it won't look so blatant. But I think I did a decent job with the glue lines. In fact, this is a close of the right glue line. My fingernail is exactly on the join: The color change, where you might guess the join is, is a little to the right of the join! I try to plan ahead, but I'm always surprised by somethings. I did not take into account that the drill press would not be able to reach the center line for drilling the dowel holes. I ended up cutting notches and got that part done. It might have seemed an obvious thing to do, but I wanted to keep as much wood as possible to give the router a place to sit when I route the chambers. The notch at the bottom that you can see (and that's black) was cut with the bandsaw. The other one I cut with the jigsaw. The jigsaw actually worked better (and didn't scorch the wood). I don't know what I'll do when it's time to rough cut the body shape.

Honestly, I don't know. Not only am I new to this, it is not my personal bandsaw, and it's quite likely they don't equip it with high quality blades. But I didn't worry about it too much since the entire rough, black surface was removed.

Finished the chamber template: So, I have an electronics cavity, and two acoustic chambers, which will be joined by another route which I'll make a separate template for. Then I'll need to make the sound hole template. And that's it! With that, I should be able to get the body routed and glued together. I hope to get that done before next week. Here's a possible sketch for a sound hole. Just a simple "swoosh" like I've seen on some Rickenbackers:

Well, when I started drawing the body, I started with a drawing of a Stratocaster, and with each new draft, widened the horns and made the bottom rounder. So, I think if I tightened everything above the waist, that would just get me back to being more like a Stratocaster. Anyway, I spent a lot of time playing with pickups, and while I'm not even done with that, I at least know enough about them to plan where they'll fit. So, that let me design the chambers. I made a working template out of my master template, drew the chambers on them, and started hollowing it out: I will use that template for both the top and bottom halves, so I'll probably need to use wooden dowels to help line them up for gluing.

Well, yeah, that's what I meant. When the neck is still square, glue the fretboard on, cut the slots, then shape the neck and the fretboard at the same time.

It seems like everyone recommends cutting the slots in a fretboard while the board is still loose, then gluing it to the neck. Why not just glue it to the neck and then cut the slots? I can think of a few advantages of doing it that way -- for example, the slots could easily be cut perpendicular to the path of the strings, and then that would be that. Whereas the other way, you have to make sure you carefully align the fretboard when you glue it on, and fix it so it doesn't slip, to keep the existing slots oriented as well as they were when they were cut. And off the top of my head I can't think of any disadvantages. But I'm thinking there must be some, or else people would already do it that way. So, what am I overlooking?