Continuing on from where we left off. The neck pocket has been routed, the body cut and initially prepared with 40 grit, & then 80 grit sandpaper on the edges, our centerline still remains and the body is now in fine shape to route for the roundover. The reason the edges were prepared and leveled smooth with sandpaper is that it will have the bearing from the ½” roundover bit riding on the surface so a smooth even surface is the key.
The topic of what bit to use for rounding the edges of the body tends to stir up some debate on what Fender or Gibson used. Personally, I don’t have a tendency to obsess over the details on who did what and in what years they did it, and found that using roundover bits before on cabinet and trim projects that ¼” and 3/8” may be too subtle of radius, so ½” is what was chosen and leave the obsession for the quality in the craft, not the details on who did what.
Body Roundover
Body Roundover
After the body has been routed with the ½” Roundover bit some sanding to the edges to blend the body in were required. 100 & 150 grit were used to address minor shaping and blending both on blocks and the orbital sander. Wood is quite forgiving so if you measure multiple times before making cuts any additional material can be sanded or filed away with a rasp to perfection.
Once the body has been sanded and the roundover blended to suit. The main areas that allow the player to comfortably handle and play the instrument were addressed. Since the goal of this build was not to have a slab style body, a forearm and belly cut were planned to be shaped and integrated cleanly into the lines. There isn’t much information on how to go about making the cuts only the tools required to perform the work, and other instruments to serve as examples. I planned initially to use a Grinder with 40 grit sanding disc, but after testing one on some of the scrap wood from the body I found it removed material too quickly for my taste and had a tendency to burn the wood slightly. In its place a 6” Wood Rasp was used. For the price and ease of use the Wood Rasp seemed to be a better fit. It removes roughly 1/16-1/32” of material on each pass and makes removal clean and quick without any burns or gouges. There wasn’t any go to guide on this so I simply held the body up in playing position, and also in seated position and made some marks with a pencil on the lines of where the forearm cut fit best. I chose roughly a 15 degree downward slope that ends with a thickness of ½”. After roughing out the shape with the rasp, the orbital equipped with 100 & 150 grits were used to remove all the tooling marks and smooth the cut into the body. Final results below.
Forearm Cut
I used a similar technique with the belly cut, though I also used myself and someone else as reference on the belly cut to measure up how deep and aggressive the cut needed to be and how it should be blended into the body lines. The gradient of roughly 28 degrees was used for the belly cut and the 6” Wood Rasp used once again for removal of the bulk of material. With similar fashion the orbital was brought in with 100 & 150 grit to final shape the cut and remove any unwanted tooling marks from the rasp.
Belly Cut
With most of the initial body shaping completed there was little left to do with the exception of routing for the pickups and the rear control cavity to fit the controls. I chose to start with routing the pickups and leave the control cavity route and planned knob/control placement to be left until the neck has been bolted up and bridge placed for space testing the constraints.
For the Pickups I chose to use a set of Delano Xtender 4 HE’s, which are oval shaped and quite unique in shape. My experience with the Delano pickups and the even response, blend of modern and vintage vibe, and feel is what initially made the choice an easy one. One difficulty to overcome is that the pickup template that is manufactured for this pickup is less than ¼” thick. To build a thicker template to allow each pass to remove ¼” safely and not dig the bit into the wood ½” on the first pass I chose to purchase a small piece of red oak in ½” thickness. This proved to be the perfect thickness and choice aside from using ½” MDF. I chose the hardwood bc it will not shrink or swell and will be safe for use for many years to come. I also just left the acrylic template adhered with double sided carpet tape as it was perfect in fit for use.
Belly Cut
With the template made and ready to transfer to the body the router was fired up once again. I used a 3/8” bit with 3 bearings stacked for the pickups. I chose to use the 3/8” over the ½” bit due to it more precisely removing material. After 3 passes the complete depth required for the pickups was handled. As with every step of work measurements and double checking the measurements has to be made. The router base is the one of the more easy places to make mistakes if the base is not either level or set for the correct depth, so taking your time and double checking your work before cutting is an absolute must
Pickup Route
Stay Tuned for the next article on this budget-inspired build.
This is gonna look so cool!