Scratch body experiment

[Oby]

This looks mint. I presume your spaying the candy with a gun? And what's your ferrule jig?

Yes I'm using a spray gun and compressor. The jig was just a block of wood I drilled in a drill press using the bridge plate as a guide. The drill press made sure each hole was perfectly vertical. Then I put the bridge plate on the guitar and drilled 2 pilot holes just a couple of mm deep, put the jig on top and poked 2 spare 3mm drill bits into the holes to line them up with the pilot holes in the guitar then clamped the jig in place. Then I used my hand drill with a 3mm auger long enough to go through the jig and the guitar body. I didn't want to rely on the clamps so I left the spare drill bits in the pilot holes while I did the 4 inner holes first then moved them to do the 2 outer holes.
I checked a US made Tele in a shop today and I was surprised the ferrules weren't perfectly seated. Some of them were flush with the body but a few were sticking out slightly. So I think I actually did a better job than the US factory with the string holes.

As for laser cutting... I never thought of that. Actually I thought laser cutting was mostly done with sheet metal.
Anyway I did it the hard way using a jigsaw to cut the rough holes then a router to tidy it up a bit and finally hours and hours (literally) with a piece of sandpaper wrapped around my little finger. I got the inspiration after watching a Crimson Guitars build I'm sure most of you are familiar with... the 90 hour build.

[FrankenWashie]

I got the inspiration after watching a Crimson Guitars build I'm sure most of you are familiar with... the 90 hour build.

I would have said that "The Complication" was the build that drove poor Ben Crowe crackers, But I feel he may have been well on the way to crackers long before that build took place.
He's a constant source of inspiration and WTF's for me.

[Oby]

But I feel he may have been well on the way to crackers long before that build took place.

I agree completely.