Another productive weekend ...
Part of my plan for this build was to look at what to do with the scratch plate. I was thinking about replacing the plastic one that comes with the kit with something made from a contrasting wood instead. I looked on eBay and found a mob in the US that make them from a number of materials and found that they made a 5 string Jazz scratch plate from walnut that looked like the sort of thing I was thinking of.
I was also thinking that inlaying the scratchplate and not just screwing it onto the body might be a great thing to do, so I asked them if they'd make me a custom one without screw holes or bevelled edges. They were happy to (probably less work for them anyway!)
Once it arrived I traced the outline of it onto the body using a stanley knife and then routed out the shape using my father's day present (Dremel from the kids!)
It took a bit of mucking around to get the scratchplate to fix perfectly into the hole ... needless to say, it wasn't perfect 'cause it's the first time I've tried this! I glued the plate in place and clamped it overnight ...
Next morning I took the clamps off and was pretty happy with the result ... the plate was sitting a little above the body, and there were a couple of places where there were gaps around the plate.
I grabbed the Timbermate and filled the gaps and let it dry. I then got the sander out and used some 400 grade paper to get the plate down to the same level as the body. I'm pretty happy with the outcome ...
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