But wait! There's more!
Here's another shot of how the pilot bearing works against the MDF template. And now I have an answer for why I take off so much in the first pass - if I set it much shallower I would lose the contact area between the bearing and the template - at least it sounds good to me.
To machine the control and pickup cavities, the 3/4" MDF template goes back on. It is held in place with 2 screws and a BIG HONKING CLAMP. I'll take this opportunity to drill pilots for the string through and bridge mounting plates.
To make life a bit easier for the WORLD'S WORST ROUTER I drilled a pilot hole of sorts into the cavities. I'm beginning to think it would be nice to own a nicer router. Maybe something that can plunge.
Here's another shot of the pilot bearing on these pattern cutters. These are cheap, but functional, cutters that I bought from Grizzly. So far they haven't let me down.
Gee, how many empty rattle-cans of DEFT can YOU spot on the floor? Might soon be time to do something about that.