Scratch body experiments

[Bakersdozen]

Have been beavering away at a few scratch bodies after the inspiration on here got me thinking I took the sandwich approach in all of them and have tried to keep the costs down in them all, so at this stage I don't have very much invested but am pleased with the results so far.

There's a single cut pine/ply/pine body. The pine was joined from 180x18 panels, which worked out to be a bit cheaper than the laminated pine panel sections. Had a few "moments" with a large router bit, so there's some filler action happening.

The double cut is Tas Oak/ply/Tas Oak. Similar approach here from 185x19 panel with some really nice flamey figure through it. Hopefully it works out well enough to keep a natural finish, we will see.

Tele shape is some old hardwood floor boards I found under the house, again with a ply sandwich. Trying a different approach here, final shaping the ply in the middle and rough shaping the outside layers. Then will aim to use a bottom bearing bit to bring the rough shaped outside layers to the final shape using the middle layer as the guide.

Only the double cut and single cut bodies have been through the diy router sled to get them super level, they now need final sanding.

Plan is to use eBay/PBG necks for these if they turn out okay.

[FrankenWashie]

Channeling Robin there mate! Nice work. I like that DC shape.

I Have used the PBG strat necks on a couple of builds and, for the money, they are pretty solid value. I haven’t sampled the set necks so I can’t vouch for those. I would expect that they would be similar in quality.

Would you attempt a scratch neck for the Tele? They are a fairly simple slab type neck. Routing templates are very easy to come by and the most challenging part is getting your truss rod channel routed and the slope of the board/nut/headstock transition.

[McCreed]

Interesting stuff there BD.
How'd go about joining the panels? Did you get yourself a jointer?

[Bakersdozen]

Would you attempt a scratch neck for the Tele? They are a fairly simple slab type neck. Routing templates are very easy to come by and the most challenging part is getting your truss rod channel routed and the slope of the board/nut/headstock transition.

Quite possibly would be something to work towards. I would need to get a good Japanese saw for trimming down headstock girth and then for cutting fret slots etc.

[Bakersdozen]

Interesting stuff there BD.
How'd go about joining the panels? Did you get yourself a jointer?

Most of the panels I got were fairly well dressed, just a small cleanup with a hand plane

[McCreed]

Most of the panels I got were fairly well dressed, just a small cleanup with a hand plane

Ahh, that's cool. Something to think about (for me) if/when I attempt making a blank.

[Bakersdozen]

Ahh, that's cool. Something to think about (for me) if/when I attempt making a blank.

I'm going to just ignore the if/when statement there brother. I just read it as when

This idea from @robin really opens things up and makes this really accessible when you think about the different possibilities available.

[Bakersdozen]

Bit of a score here, I got the tele body all flat on the router sled this Arvo and turns out those floor boards were Tassie oak as well haha. I wanted to be able to have the sides done as well today, but family and commitments got in the way. Unfortunately, the router is too loud to operate after noise restriction hours kick in, so it's going to have to sit until next weekend.

[McCreed]

Hah! I have the same router!

So do you push the "sled" across the top to "plane" it?

I presume the "skids" of the sled are set to the height (thickness) you want to achieve?

So many questions!

[Bakersdozen]

Haha! The sled stays static and the router slides across it back and forth. Then move the whole sled up to complete the next run. The tape helps it slide well. I took the one half of the base off to make it super flat, found that when complete it wasn't uber true and flat.

I use the adjustment on the router base to get the cutting depth (thickness) to where I want it as per normal operations.

Also have a Perspex base I made with a spare base. Helps to prevent tipping and gives better square coverage. I had the Ryobi trimmer before this (hand me down) which eventually gave out and this fits the same base.