Sonics Semi-Scratch experiment - Flying Victory

[FrankenWashie]

Probably just glue it on, but there is potential for inlays in the future. I wouldn't mind trying some chrome effect paint on one as well to make it like a car badge.

Oh yeah, that will be hot!

[Sonic Mountain]

Well I got myself a plunge router this arvo and immediately set about destroying both the body and templates. Lol.

I did manage one nice humbucker route, so that's good. But the rest is pretty much firewood now. I managed to get the depth setting very wrong on one humbucker route, then on the neck pocket I didn't have quite enough guide bearing on the template and it went a big woopsie.

I'm not particularly bothered, the whole point of this is working out what I need to look out for before attempting something with nice wood.

Anyway, I will try again. I think I can still use the outside shape and one of the humbucker routes (although it is just slightly to narrow, another good thing to have discovered)

[FrankenWashie]

Well I got myself a plunge router this arvo and immediately set about destroying both the body and templates. Lol.

I did manage one nice humbucker route, so that's good. But the rest is pretty much firewood now. I managed to get the depth setting very wrong on one humbucker route, then on the neck pocket I didn't have quite enough guide bearing on the template and it went a big woopsie.

I'm not particularly bothered, the whole point of this is working out what I need to look out for before attempting something with nice wood.

Anyway, I will try again. I think I can still use the outside shape and one of the humbucker routes (although it is just slightly to narrow, another good thing to have discovered)

He He, fun with routers, if there’s no blood and nothing in your eyes you’ve done well!

[Sonic Mountain]

Haha.. Yeah.. bags of fun!

Despite what my wife thinks I'm pretty safety conscious and I have a healthy respect for these things. I will admit that I used to be a member of the 'tilt my head back and squint' school of thought. But since getting permanent glasses I've had a lot of things whack them that I'm glad didn't hit me in the eye!

Anyway, in the spirit of sharing our mistakes so that they may educate others here is what I done did.

[FrankenWashie]

I’m looking at that and I’m thinking you didn’t hog out first? Or is it just that you’ve cut past that depth already?

[Sonic Mountain]

So basically I was just trying to take 3-4mm off each pass and get as close to the template edge without touching as I could. The errors came from messing around with the depth stop on the go and trying to line the guide bearing up with the template. After I grabbed the edge on the neck pocket I just kept fiddling/testing with the depth and lock mechanism which is the extra mess in there.

Really I was probably just being a bit impatient and gung ho, but I learn best by just doing and will approach it better next time.

Might even duck off today and grab some more pine for take 2. It's a bit bloody warm to be in the shed though so will see how I go.

[Sonic Mountain]

OK so I had another look and thought bugger it. I can fix this. Bog to the rescue I glued the masonite face plate to the main body



The neck actually sits in the pocket pretty well, so I'll do another more careful pass with the router once the bog is dry. Will be interesting to see how it holds up, but there is a fair bit of wood left so I reckon it'll be fine.





I am catching myself giggling at the pure bodge happening here.








It was about here I realised I'd forgotten to route channels for the bridge wire and humbucker wires so stay tuned to see how I work around that.

[FrankenWashie]

8mm long series auger bit down through the neck pocket?

[Sonic Mountain]

Yeah, something like that. The rear HB route is close enough to the bridge post to drill through. I'll just make sure the control cavity route on the back is near enough to do the same.

This is so much fun after doing such a high detail build on that ST 1

[Sonic Mountain]

Bit more tinkering. The black 'AG' hardware pack I ordered turned up. One of the many mistakes I made on the template was having the HB route too close to the end of the neck, so the ring fouled on the end of the fret board. Out with the router again to enlarge. Getting better at wielding it, but still ended up making it about 1.5mm too big. Guess I'm in for another bog round

Also extended the bridge holes so I could temporarily mount it and see how the neck alignment is going. It's pretty good, but I'm going to tickle the pocked a little bit more to give me some more meat on the high e-side.

Continues to be fun if a bit dodgy. I think it's going to end up a pretty nice guitar with all the silliness hidden away