Routing Part I

It's been a busy day drilling and routing! So today I set out with the plan to make the guitar at least playable. I started off by drilling all holes for sections that would later be routed all the way through from the front, and the holes for screws and strings. This gave me a guide on the backside of the guitar for when I rout the back.

I then attached the bridge to make sure it was secure, and in line.

I then started work on the neck section. In my experience with routing its good practice to do bit by bit, as if the router bit is taking too much material off at any one time, it can judder and become unpredictable. I tested with the neck in the slot to measure depth as I went. The bridge has about 10mm room for error, however you want to be able to freely set the guitars action.

This is the final slot for the neck. I made a mistake on the initial guide that was slightly askew, which led to a gap on the underside of the guitar neck. I used Blu Tak on that section to make sure the neck was properly adhered to the body before drilling, and in the location I wanted.

Probably the most nerve wracking bit is drilling the neck onto the body! Fortunately it all worked out and I was extra careful with drilling depth.

I then started work on the head. I liked the head of my previous one, but made a mistake by putting the machine heads a little too close together. It's not very noticeable when you look at it, but from the back you can see the machine heads fighting for space.

I can't say I'm totally happy with the shape of the head, so I will make some adjustments tomorrow to make it a smoother shape.

Here's the finished article after today. Intonation is surprisingly spot on with absolutely no setup! The action is incredibly high, as in just playable so the neck will need to be lowered by about 2mm. It feels comfortable to play and so far the balance is good. This will change when material is taken away and heavy batteries are added! The neck feels nice, but the frets will need to be filed down as they are quite prominent. I will start work on the touchscreen and smoothen off the head tomorrow.