Purple Heart Pickups...

Lets get a look at progress

Not bad so far...




A few more...

Done for the day

Finished cleaning up the lines on the body. I was going to start routing the body but got tired and decided to go drink instead. I always make mistakes when I get tired. Parts come in on Wednesday so I will probably try to finish up next weekend and get ready for finishing. I still have to thin the body but I need to get some other stuff ready because when I switch the bandsaw blade to resaw I have some other stuff to resaw.

Almost done carves

Still not completely finished. I think I am going to take another 1/16" off the back. It needs to be a little flatter also. Right now it is a nice round shape but the customer wants it to match my RG550.

Rough carves

Time to start some rough carving. Last time I fretted the neck first. It moved after carving. This time I am carving it first. After trimming some wood with the bandsaw I started in with the spokeshave. The birdseye maple started to tear out... so I moved to the sanding disk. Not my favorite way to do this but I am not risking a deep tearout or gouge mark.

Neck pickup and side dots

Neck pickup routed.


Side dots installed while the neck is still flat on the edge. I used to forget this all the time. Then I was looking at Myka's build threads and realized I needed to do this earlier in the build.

Tight fit

It was a little tight. I had to install it with a dead blow hammer... should slide right together when I glue it.

Fit neck

The centerline is obvious on the spalted flamed maple so I am working from that. Template attached, rough out the route with the forstner bit then clean up with the router. The main thing I hate is the little points the forstner leaves so I set the depth of the drill press a 1/8" high.