Electrajet-inspired build

[flatfive]

The slot for the pickup selector switch seemed like something
I'd be able to screw up pretty easily.

The slot is supposed to be 1/16" wide, and 1 1/16" long.
I found a 1/16" router bit on Amazon, but didn't trust my
full-sized router on such a delicate slot, so broke down and
bought a Ridgid laminate trimmer. I think this is a tool I'll
be able to use a lot.

I started with a test. I drilled a 1/16" hole in scrap,
drew a line through it, and drew a second line parallel
to the first. Then I put the bit (installed into the router
into the hole, snugged some MDF against the
router base, and clamped it, using the second line as
a guide.



Hope that gets the idea across. The test worked out fine, so
I went for it on the real thing. The only problem is that I didn't
drill the starter 1/16" hole directly on the line between the switch
mounting holes.



I don't think this will be a problem; the holes for the bolts can be
adjusted slightly; the tops of the bolts will hide the issue.

Here's the router bit I used: 1/16" cutting diameter and only
1/4" long. I guess at that diameter you can't go much longer.



Here's the rout after minor clean-up. You can see it's slightly
to one side of the line that bisects the bolt holes.

[Reverend D]

Looks great, straight as an arrow and really clean. Yeah I can see its a little offset, but the screw hole should give you some latitude. Otherwise cant beat how clean the slot looks. Its probably only off a 1/32nd or so anyway..

Regards,

D.

[adirondak5]

Nice job , I didnt even think they made a 1/16 router bit , you are going to love that Ridgid Laminate Trimmer , I use mine more than I use my full size router , I put the square base on mine , gives a little more of a platform for it to work with , one of the best tools I ever bought.

[plpicher]

look good, you can always file the hole to make the screw centered on the line then countersink it so that the screw grabs at the right place +it will hide it well.
amazing build!

[flatfive]

I learned a lesson: don't do a build step that's not right
figuring you can fix it later -- especially if you aren't sure
exactly how you'll fix it later.

I routed my pickup cavities with a 1/2" diameter bit, knowing
the corners of the pickup covers were tighter than that.

It's been a struggle to figure out how to tighten the corners.
There's no pickguard, so the edges of the pickup cavities have
to look good.

I got a 3/8" diameter straight router bit, and thought I'd use
the jig idea suggested by volowv in post #79 above.

Tested the idea on the MDF template, but it was hard to get the
rout perfectly aligned with the existing cavity. And it has to
be almost perfectly aligned -- even a tiny offset if very visible:



On top of that, there are 8 corners to fix! I gave up on this
approach.

I was looking at a Jack Wells build thread the other day and
was thinking that building a guitar is a matter of solving a
serious of little problems. Jack's thread was great because
he solved every problem in an elegant and sometimes ingenious
way.

That is Jack. Me -- after three days of thinking I still had no
idea of how to solve this problem.

Tonight I popped into the basement and thought: I've got steady
hands; I'm just going to freehand this with my new laminate router!!

Fortunately my senses returned right away.

I then thought of using a small sanding drum on the Dremel tool,
but since I don't have a routing base for it I thought I'd try the
small sanding drum in the drill press.

Tried this first on the MDF template, and it worked. The nice
thing is that the rate of removing material is easy to control.
So I went on to the real thing:



I took it slow and easy, then did a little sanding by hand on the
corners that still needed a little tightening.



This pic doesn't show it well, but the end result was pretty good.



(but next time I will use the right-sized bit to rout the cavities)

[flatfive]

More or less finished on the back contour. Thought I
was pretty close after finishing with the rasp but I've
spent 2-3 hours since then with sandpaper.



Fun to take pictures of it:



There's a tiny bit of touch-up 320 sanding to do on it, including
the transition to the rounded edge.



The thing I learned was that the "cut" should be kept perfectly
straight until the final sanding where the edges are slightly
softened. Originally the cut was "bulging" a little -- if that's
clear -- making it hard to get a clean break from the back to
the cut.

Warm weather this Sunday and Monday; I might have yet be
able to spray this body with lacquer before winter.

What remains to be done before finishing:

- top binding
- wiring channels
- jack hole
- bridge holes, possibly including string-through holes

The first two are doable. For the jack hole I don't know if
I drill the same sized hole as I would for a tele. Anyone know?
It's a football jack plate that I plan to use.

The bridge holes are a problem since I don't have a bridge.
I'm thinking of a hardtail bridge like the hipshot:

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bridges,...=Specs#details

Stewart-MacDonald supplies dimensions for the bridge, but
it would be risky to drill mounting holes, and especially string-through
holes, without the bridge in hand.

[naneek]

very cool. It looks a lot like one of the 90's fender toronados. I'm looking forward to continuing updates. good luck!

[flatfive]

Since this isn't really a tele I was wondering if there
might be any surprises in drilling the wiring channels.

The two channels to the pickup cavities can be done
just like a tele. Here the path for the channel to the
neck cavity.



The path for the channel to the bridge cavity is shorter
and easier than for a tele:



It's an 1/8" drill bit -- a Toshiba "black magic". Squeals a
lot for black magic...

Drilling for the jack hole was a bit different from a tele, where
the jack is mounted to a flat surface. I'm planning
to use a oval, or "football", jack plate like on an Electrajet.

However, as this pic shows, there's no direct path to the
cavity from about where the jack should be -- at least no
path perpendicular to the tangent at the body edge.



It seems the solution is to drill a jack hole first, then
somehow drill a wiring channel between the jack hole
and the control cavity.

I made a jig to hold the body while drilling the jack hole.
It was inspired by a clamping arrangement I saw in a Jack Wells
build thread.



The jig is just a piece of 1x10 screwed with a few screws into
the end of a 2x4. I stuck a bit of felt on the bottom of the
clamping surface. The drill press table is rotated so that it's
not below the bit.



The hole was better and the process less nerve-racking than in
my past efforts. A 7/8" forstner bit was used.

Now to somehow drill a wiring channel between the jack hole
and control cavity. I couldn't see how to do this from the
control cavity direction, so the plan was to drill through the
side of the jack hole:



The jig was especially handy here because there's no way I
could have drilled through the side of another hole by hand.



This last pic is a little unclear -- it's showing the hole to the
control cavity from the side of the jack hole.



I'm guessing the wire to the output jack isn't going to get
in the way of the plugged-in cable tip.

[plpicher]

great jig&job!
I love that build, looks great&original.

[flatfive]

Thanks for the encouragement!

Originally Posted by plpicher

great jig&job!
I love that build, looks great&original.

[flatfive]

I'm not finding fun in binding.

I use superglue and occasionally a heat gun.
Black binding especially seems to need heat around tight
bends, else it crazes. But I find it hard to head the binding
to just the right temperature with a heat gun.

I also use blue masking tape, but it's just for insurance,
because I don't stop pressing the binding with my thumbs
until I've counted to 30 and the glue has set.

Here's the body after gluing the binding.



I only found one small oops. I tried to fix it once but it
popped back out of place after I let go. I'll try again tomorrow.



Here's the body with the tape removed. I'm not sure about
whether black was the right choice. But hard to know before
seeing the body with the black pickups, bridge, and other
hardware.

[Citizen_Insane]

I think the black is perfect, looks great!

[jkingma]

I haven't checked on this thread in a bit. It's really coming along nicely. Great work !!

[flatfive]

Citizen_Insane and jkingma -- thanks for the kind words and
encouragement!

There's a couple of small gaps in the binding. I've heard that
you can fix these by using goop made from melting binding
in acetone, but didn't know the details.

I asked ievans for some help on this, and he suggested
adding a little acetone to bits of binding in a jar. He said
that the trick is to get the right thickness, because if
the goop's too thick it will be hard to get into the gaps,
and if it's too thin it can melt the binding.

I'll give it a shot tonight.

[plpicher]

with black hardware, it will look great, btw, black hardware was a really good idea, we don't see that often.

[flatfive]

Two days worth of progress to report, as last night I must've
forgotten to press the 'submit reply' button.

Anyway, to finish up work on binding, I first quickly routed with
a flush trim bit to remove any excess. Then I sanded all round
the body edge with 220 and 320 grit to get the binding completely
flush with the wood. Did a quick pass with 600 on the binding
itself. Did a similar thing along the top edge of the binding.



There are a couple of small gaps I'll try to fix with
binding goop made from binding and acetone.



Got the Hipshot bridge, so now I can place it and drill the
mounting and string-through holes! I'm happy with the
quality look and feel of the bridge. It's hefty.



For placing the bridge position in one direction I measured
25.5" from the edge of the nut to the saddles.



For the other direction I used strings from the E tuners, through
the nut slots, towards the bridge.



Once the bridge was in the right place I drew a light pencil line
around it and inside the holes.

Now on to drilling. I placed the bridge on the neck with a piece
of double-sided tape, and drilled the string-through holes to
about a 1/2" deep with a 1/8" brad point bit, using the bridge as a
template. I think I used a 3/32" bit for the bridge mounting
holes.



The string-through holes are pretty straight!



It's vital that these holes are straight, because the
ferrule holes on the back of the body are drilled using the
"registration pin" method. Here's the 1/8" pin on some MDF
attached to the drill press table, and lined up with a 3/8"
forstner bit.



The body gets flipped over, and the pin put in the string-through
holes, one after another. At each step, the ferrule hole is drilled.

Since the top holes are aligned pretty well, so are the bottom ones:



Then I went back to the front and drilled through with the 1/8" bit.



Okay, all done with the bridge holes.

Returning to the binding -- I put bits of the binding in acetone,
and after 5 or 6 hours it turned to goop.



I needed a very small putty knife to apply the goop to the gaps.
Maybe a screwdriver?



Hey! Who's been using my screwdriver as a putty knife? Was
probably my wife or son, I'm thinking.

Here's the goop. Seemed maybe a little too thing to use. ievans
warned me that if it's too thin, it can wreck the glued-on binding.



But the acetone is so volatile, the stuff seems to thicken really
fast once out of the jar. So I applied some to the gaps.



I also discovered another gap, but this seemed to call for wood
filler. I used plastic wood because it dries really fast and doesn't
seem to soak into the wood.



After an hour or so I sanded the problem areas, gave the top a
final sanding, and brushed on some Minwax sanding sealer.



The veneer is starting to look really nice with some finish on it.
It almost has an alabaster quality about it, which isn't really
captured in this pic:



----

A couple of other things, for those not yet exhausted by the length
of this post..

Today I also cut up some planks so I could glue them into blanks
for use next year.



That's poplar, basswood, and alder. No green in the poplar!

The more exciting development is what came in the Stewart Macdonald
box besides the Hipshot bridge:



Excited about trying neck building for the first time!

[adirondak5]

Looking real good.

[jkingma]

[jdranger]

Really nice work, can't wait to see the finished guitar.
JD

[flatfive]

Thanks for the nice feedback, guys, and welcome to
TDPRI, JD!

I've brushed Minwax lacquer sanding sealer on the front
and back, but it looks like it will be spring before it's
sprayed with same tinted clear and then the clear coats.

In the meantime, though, I've got a couple other guitars
to finish, and I want to do at least one practice neck.