JR-1 semi-scratch build

[neverwas]

Custom ordered a JR-1 as just the neck and body with the neck pocket routed, the rest left blank to rout and do with as I wanted (working up to a proper scratch build).

As you can see, the factory decided to rout the control cavity from the back. I wanted to do my own from the front as the plan was to do something similar to this with a large shaped pickguard.

Not a drama, just means there wont be a pickguard on this one and Adam looked after me, so no complaints, only an adjustment to my plans (which weren't set in stone anyway).
The grain on the head stock seemed to be calling for a PRS style shape and I obliged but with a different profile across the top.

[Zandit75]

Nice headstock shape Neverwas!! You going to be doing similar shaping to the top as the photo you supplied?

[neverwas]

Thanks Zandit. Yeah, going to do some shaping on front and back of the body very similar to that pic.
A bit more of where I'm up to;
Marked the centre line on the body and worked out where the bridge and pups were to be placed.

I figured that while I was having a go at routing the pup cavities, might as well do something a little unusual and put the neck P90 at an angle, just coz I could.
Drilled the bridge bushing holes on the drill press. Original plan was to use a wrap around bridge but they were out of stock when I went to order, which led to another change of plan and went for a Gotoh tuneomatic bridge and string through ferrules. With the fine knurling on the post bushes, found that a 7/16 drill bit gave the right size hole for the smooth part of the bush to slide in and tight enough for the knurls to grab.

Then went about making a template from 2mm acrylic sheet for the string through holes.

Found a couple of YT vids that showed to drill (on a drill press) from the front, part way through and flip the body over, use the shank of the same size bit to locate the holes and line up the larger bit to finish drilling through. In this case the front holes are 5mm and the back 8mm.

The pic explains it better than I can.

[Dedman]

Hey this is gonna look great!

[neverwas]

That method works really well.

Well, it works well as long as you remember to tighten the clamps holding the body down. Can anyone see a problem here?

After the red mist cleared and the swearing stopped, I doweled up my mistake and redrilled.


Grant

[neverwas]

Cheers Dedman.

[Brendan]

Dedman - you're dead on - this is looking good!

[wokkaboy]

Awesome work as usual Grant

[stan]

wow Grant if you pull this off, it will be very cool, and I'm sure you can.
those PRS axes are very retro cool.
Since you are learning stuff along the way - you could always reshape the control cavity to give you the layout you want to get the style, or something close to it, that you are after

[Andy40]

This build is going to be severely cool.

Great save with the patch job there. I would have sworn too.