This guitar is going to be a semi-hollow, so hollowing out the body was the next step I took after preparing the top wood. To make it semi-hollow, the white limba body gets chambers routed out and the myrtle top is getting an f-hole on one side.
Making the Chambers
Quick note: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, I may earn a commission at no cost to you. Additionally, as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Any link I include is here to make it easy for you to find the tools and products that I used in the build process.
I planned out the entire build on design software, so I printed out the outlines to trace the shape of the chambers onto the wood, using the centerline for reference.
To start the chambers, I hog out the majority of the wood with forstners bits on the drill press. This takes a lot of the load off of the router.
After most of the wood was hogged out, I moved on to using the router to clean up the routes. This takes several light passes at increasing depth.
I didn’t make a template for the bit to follow, but this wood cut so easily I was able to just freehand it after doing the two inner straight edges.
I left just over ¼” of thickness on the back of the body, same as the front.
The F-Hole
I designed the f-hole to follow the curve of the body. To cut it out, I drilled holes in the 3 corners, then used a coping saw to cut from point to point.
A bit of sanding and it’s good to go.
[forgot to take pictures, whoops]Something New
When we were planning out this guitar, the single coil pickups were somewhat of a design issue.
We didn’t like the way the mockups looked with pickup rings and we didn’t want to cover the top wood with a pickguard either.
And single coil pickups require an odd shaped route below the surface, so it wouldn’t look right to just direct mount them (IMO).
A New Pickguard Concept
After taking some time to think it over, an idea popped in my head. Why not cut a pickguard out of the top wood?
It would be a perfect match, almost invisible, nothing would be covered, it would be perfectly level with the top surface, and it would take out the need for a control cavity cover on the back like a normal Strat style pickguard would.
Well, it’s a risk. I don’t want to somehow screw up the top wood we chose. I’d also have to find a tool with a thin enough kerf to cut it so the gap would be small.
I tried doing some googling to see if anyone had done this before and how exactly to do it, but the closest I could find were inlaid faux pickguards made of a contrasting wood (which are very cool, by the way). [If anyone has seen this done before, drop a link in the comments so I can check it out.]
After thinking out the plan a bit (and consulting with Shawn from May Custom Basses for a second opinion), I pitched the idea and we decided yes, let’s go for it.
So, this was cut – very carefully – by hand.
I’m pretty happy with how that turned out!
The Glue-up
The gluing was done in two steps. The first was to glue the veneer to the myrtle.
Normally, I would just sandwich it all together at one time for a solid body. But with a semi-hollow, I’m going to get a better glue up if the veneer is pressed against a solid surface. For this, I just clamped it down to the workbench.
I glued the veneer after cutting out the pickguard and f-hole. It would have been easier to glue it first, but the saw cuts on the down stroke and I was afraid it would tear up the veneer as I cut.
So, to make it hard on myself, I then had to trim the veneer and free the pickguard again after gluing. If you’re wondering why, it’s because there’s very little wood holding the treble side of the myrtle top now that the pickguard is cut out and after sitting for a few days, the wood wanted to squeeze inward.
I needed to space it out correctly while gluing it to the veneer so that the veneer and glue didn’t stiffen it into the wrong position.
After a bit of clean up and sanding around the (inner) edges:
Then, the 2nd part of the glue up – gluing the top (w/veneer) to the body.
After the glue dries, I can move on to cutting out the final body shape.
Stay tuned.
Next post: Shaping the body
