This one is going to be a pretty quick update.
The glue has dried and the body is out of clamps.
I cut out the body shape on the bandsaw.
I cleaned up the dried glue in the pickguard area, then I spent some time sanding the edges.
Sometimes I will make a body template out of mdf and use a flush trim bit on my router to clean up the body shape a bit quicker, but this time it seemed faster to just sand it.
After getting the edges of the body nice and smooth, I was able to do some rounding and beveling.
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First, I use a roundover bit on the router to put a nice roundover on the back of the body.
Then I flipped it over and switched to a chamfer bit, which cuts a 45 degree angle. I used this around the front of the body and just put a very small bevel on the top.
Then I moved on to some carving with my angle grinder and a 60 grit flap wheel. I have another blog that goes into more detail about how I use an angle grinder to carve a guitar or bass body.
For now, I carved the belly cut and the forearm contour with it. Later I’ll use it on the neck heel and in the lower horn for some more fret access.
The carves on this build are pretty small because of it being a semi-hollow. I definitely don’t want to carve into the chambers!
And to make sure that I didn’t carve into the chambers, my previously printed chamber layouts came in very handy.
Here’s a quick little video of shaping the body.
These woods are really satisfying to sand. Both the myrtle and the white limba cleaned up really quickly with some 120 grit sandpaper.
You can see just a little bit of that dark veneer that I put in between the top and body in the forearm cut in the picture above.
The neck is coming up next. Stay tuned.
Next post: Making the neck and headstock
