Thinline thickness?

[LocustPlague]

I've looked around and, probably due to incorrect terminology, I've had some trouble finding an answer.

Is there a thinline template floating around the forums somewhere? I'm basically curious as to how thick the top/bottom are, as well as how thick the sidewalls are. I know that the upper horn (where the strap button will fit) should be given some extra width, as well as the lower horn (I suppose due to the shape) but that's about it.

From my assessment of the warmoth pictures/information, it looks like the tops they make are 1/4". Is that relatively close to the standard? Also, using some scaled measurements (using 12.96" as the total width of the guitar [from Terry Downs' template]) I came up with a sidewall of 1/2" all the way around, but with added width on the horns (to about 1")

Do these sound reasonable, or would you guys recommend thicker? Thanks.

[Jack Wells]

Also, using some scaled measurements (using 12.96" as the total width of the guitar [from Terry Downs' template]

I believe that measurement is 12.758".

Top and bottom should be 1/4 in. Here's how the early Fenders were done.

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[Jack Wells]

Here's the first one I did. It was patterned after the way Warmoth does one. The center block was 5 in. wide and the side walls are ~ 5/8 in. at their thinnest points.

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On my second one I reduced the width of the center block to 4 in. and removed some wood between the pickups. Originally I had intended to install a bigsby thus no chamber behind the bridge.

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Here's the earlier version of my chamber template. You should make the template wide so the router doesn't tip as you run it along the sides of the template.

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I use a laminate trimmer with an extra wide base for added stability when I rout the chambers.

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[LocustPlague]

Very nice pics and explanation. I got the length (15.96) and the width (12.758) mixed up because I wasn't looking at the template at the time of posting.

I cut my template before asking, and used 1/2" for the thinnest parts of the walls. I'll probably cut another, as I'm not 100% satisfied with the result.

One other minor question. The acrylic you put on the base of your router...how thick is that? Looks to me to be about 1/4"?

Thanks.

[Jack Wells]

The acrylic is just a little less than 1/4 in. Don't recall exactly. It's whatever is available at Home Depot.

I remove most of the wood with a Forstner bit and drill press. I drill a little less than the final cavity depth so the router will clean up the circles and center points left by the Forstner bit.

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