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Hi all, I’m working on building my first guitar, and it’s going to be kind of a thinline with two TV Jones pickups.

How do I index the router templates used in different steps, and in what order should I do that routing/hollowing? E.g. I plan to hollow out the chambers for pickups and resonance before cutting out the outline. I guess my big concern is making sure the pickups will be in the right place along the scale length. One axis seems easy enough as I can just keep a centerline, but the other direction seems trickier somehow. Is it still just a matter of making marks on the other axis, or is there a more clever method?

On a related note, what order should I do this routing in? I remember reading that it’s easier to do chambering (and I assume pickup routing) before the outline is cut out, so I’ll be doing that. But what about the neck pocket? Should I do all of that neck pocket milling after I have the thinline top glued on, or get the pocket dialed in without the top, mostly cut the pocket out of the top, glue the top on, then use a flush bit to finish it off? Feels like this might be a good way to hide minor booboos, but I really don’t know.

Thanks!

Matt, the important thing is to establish center lines and keep working from them. I recently did a chambered tele style guitar (without the f-hole, but that would be easy to add) and I did a build thread on another fourm

https://www.tdpri.com/threads/a-chamber ... ng.884657/

I did the chambering before cutting out the body shape. I made sure I had the internal access for wiring and because I wasn't going to put a p/g or control plate on the front, I did the access route on the back while the top was still off.

Once the top is on I did the binding channels and installed the binding before routing the neck pocket - I think I can get better control of the binding if I do it first. I do the neck pocket before the bridge or pickups and I build the neck as the same time I'm building the body. The neck and pocket establisth the true center line on the body and the exact scale length - if your neck is off by a hair and you have already done the bridge route they won't line up.

The geometry is pretty straight forward with a tele but I still check and double check and check again all thru the build using the actual bridge that will go on the guitar. I think that is pretty well covered in the thread.

One thing to be thinking about all the time is can you make templates that screw into a part of the guitar that will be removed in a subsequent route? I basically don't trust double stick tape to hold it in place so if possible I run a flat head screw or two into the body. My neck template screws into the area where the pickups and bridge will go (See post #50) and if I am doing humbuckers I always mount the templates using a couple of the holes for the rings.

ps - if you want to bind the f-hole it is much easier to do with the top off the guitars - you can let the binding stand proud of both the top and the inside and scrape it back.

pps - a common mistake is to drill the jack hole in the side before doing the binding channel or round over. The router bit bearing will fall into the hole and take a big hunk out of whatever you are routing. Do the the jack hole last.

Oh wow, this was very helpful, thank you for the in-depth answer!

Looks like you made a lot of similar decisions for your guitar as I expect to do with mine. My pickguard, if I have one at all, will be quite small, so I can't just use it to cover up gigantic routes. And knob-wise, I'm leaning towards a Les Paul configuration and layout, but either way they'll be coming straight through the top with no plate.

I spend too much money on wood to hide it under a pick guard. As far as the controls, think that thru before you start. I am using a three position pickup selector neck-both-bridge and single volume and tone. A LP configuration lets you blend the two pups (which I do on my LP's) but this works fine for a tele. If you are going to use a blade type switch think about how you are going to cut the slot. Otherwise good luck with your build and if there is anything I can contribute let me know.

Whichever you choose will require its own template and will also interact differently with the body and the pickups. If you want to have a 24-fret neck, you will need to take into account the position of your neck Pickup which will be pushed towards the bridge and will both give a slightly different sound, and need different positioning and routing than the same guitar with only 22 frets. The type and number of pickups also makes a difference, humbuckers will not fit in holes routed for single coils and if you decide on one, two or three would make a difference too, both in size and in spacing. Perhaps you should search the Internet for ready-made templates? I also advise you to search YouTube for videos in which experienced musicians talk about creating their own guitars and give valuable advice. I found a couple of dozen videos on this topic there and noticed that most often such videos were posted by channels that had at least 29 thousand subscribers! I am sure this is because their owners often resorted to using https://soclikes.com/buy-youtube-subscribers services in order to wind up the number of subscribers.

Do you think to try to sell your templates on instagram? From here https://technofaq.org/posts/2020/12/ins ... promotion/ you can read how to make your post on instagram very popular. If your posts are popular many people watch it

Whichever you choose will require its own template and will also interact differently with the body and the pickups. If you want to have a 24-fret neck, you will need to take into account the position of your neck Pickup which will be pushed towards the bridge and will both give a slightly different sound, and need different positioning and routing than the same guitar with only 22 frets. I advice you to post your thoughts in Instagram so that many interested people can see it. And you can always use https://viplikes.net/buy-instagram-followers to increase number of followers.

Wow! Are you guys trying to steer the discussion away from the OLF?

Spam posts from fake users.


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