I had this idea to make some guitars for the guys at work who play, and to kind of theme the aesthetics around the print studio we work in. This is my first attempt - inspired by our Technical Officer - his whole art practice involves form ply, and he also designs and builds really great Bauhaus-inspired furniture which is also pretty well always built from form ply.
Working with ply is a bit mad, and to be honest I only really thought it would be worthwhile because he doesn't really play much guitar but will love the idea (I hope)
The idea is a strat-shaped guitar, made from 36mm ply with the following:
Two humbuckers
Single Tone
Single Volume
Toggle switch
Matte (or satin) black front
Tru-oil sides and back
Maple fretboard (neck from PBG)
All black hardware
Here's where I'm up to so far...
(pickups and knobs just sitting on surface)
Turns out ply is a b***h to work with (surprise), and while I'd made a form to route the body shape I decided in the end to use a jigsaw, rasp and drum sand combo because I was getting mad tear out from the outer layer of ply. Also, I'm not super used to using the router anyway, and it scared the daylights out of me. I use hand tools all day at work, so I felt a bit more comfortable, though it was slow. There are a few things I'd do differently if I were to make another, but that's ok.
Because the back will be unstained I tried to pick a piece with a reasonably interesting grain (tape is holding down a little chip I had to glue back in place)
Made a jig so I could use my drill press as a spindle sander. Worked a treat. You can see the terrible tear out at the top of the horn. Because I'm an idiot, it never occurred to me to think about the direction of the outer facing grain, so the front is horizontal and tore to buggery, while the back was vertical grain and mostly fine. A bit of extra sanding, some timbermate, a black stain and a bevelled edge and I think no one will notice
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