Part 4: Power Tools

The wood is glued and the template traced - it's now time to start sawing.

So, for those of you who are not familiar with power tools - a jig saw is not a precision instrument. I had no illusions that it would create a finished edge - I knew there was some sanding in my future but I didn't know that it would be so imprecise. Perhaps closer to the truth is that I am the one who is imprecise and the tool is fine. I'm happy to put the blame on the tool for now and learn from my mistakes.
The "rough draft" of the body was in such bad shape that I was left with no alternative - a router would be necesarry.

For those of you not familiar with a router it can be a precision instrument in the hands of a skilled wood worker. As a guitarist - I've got game. As a wood worker - not so much...

I had not originally planned on using a router to refine the shape of the Tele. I was hoping to avoid routers in general and be able to sand my way to a symetrical guitar after I had cut the rough shape with the jig saw. ...the whole time I would be dodging snowballs in Hell and shooing flying pigs circling around my head...

The only power tool that make me more apprehensive then a router is a table saw. Anything that spins around in thousands of revolutions per minute should be respected. Adding a carbide razor to the tip of said spinning object - with no gaurd in sight - is cause for concern. The body part most likely to be damaged by a table saw or router? The fingers. The body most important to the playing of guitars? The fingers. ...you can see the nature of my concern.

I was going to seek help from friends or family - people with more routing skill than I to help me with this part of the project but my pride (read obstinance) got the better of me. I decided the only way to learn how to swim was to jump in. I went out and bought a Home Despot special - a Ryobi router for $60.

So, for those of playing the home game - that is $120 in tools - so far. That's $35 for the jig saw, $60 for the router and $25 for the router bit. I already had the sander but did need to buy sand paper in the following grits: 36, 60, 100, 150, 220, 320. I still need to buy 400 and 800 grit (and maybe higher for when it comes time to put a finish on this gal). This is just the begining too, so keep your calculators handy.

As I said, I'm not a skilled wood worker but very few people are born that way so I figured I could probably learn. Yeah, one big part of the learning process is having a teacher. As most of us know the other big part of learning is experience. Bad experience being a the more memorable for most of us. I've had three teachers when it comes to wood working: my father, and my buddies Bill and Rudy. In addition to teaching me how to use tools all three of them have tried to teach me the same lesson: Measure twice - cut once.

...did I mention that I'm a slow learner?

This is where Experience comes in. Suffer enough heart-ache and you'll learn eventually. This project has been painless for the most part but there have been numerous times where if I had just measured twice I would be playing my guitar now and not still building it.

But I digress...

One of the great things about routers is that if you buy the right router bit you can use a template or form to trace a shape. As long as your template is smooth and accurate - your final piece of wood should be as well. I bought a router bit with a ball bearing colar just above the cutting edges. This way the ball bearing guide follows the contours of the template and the blade cuts the wood. To make the template I used the Squier body to trace the shape on a piece of Medium-density fiberboard (MDF) that was about 1/2 inch thick.

If I ever build another guitar I would use 3/4 inch plexiglass for my template instead of 1/2 inch MDF. The extra hight would make it easier to do more passes with the router. I bought a router bit that is too long - it should be 1/2 inch not 1 inch but my local home despot only had the larger bit. Because of this my initial cut is too deep. It means I make fewer passes with the router but it also means my cuts are not as precise and I had quite a few burns on the wood. With routers - the shallower the cut - the smoother the end product. Some people recommend making 1/4 inch passes or less with the router. I was making anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2 inch cuts. Cuts that deep are hard on the router, hard on the blade and hard on the wood. Less, in this case, is more. Way more. There is also the thought of a router bit snapping because it is working too hard. That friends and neighbors is the thought that gives me the creeping willies.

Another reason for using plexiglass is that a transparent template would make positioning hardware and pickups much easier.

So, what you do is take your finished template and put it on top of your body wood. Clamp the template to the body using vice grips/clamps (remember not to let the clamps directly touch the body - use wood scraps between the clamps and the final piece whenever possible - this will mean less sanding later). Set your router on top of the template. Lower the router blade so that the ball-bearing guide touches the template and the blade touches the wood (I made the mistake of letting the blade touch the template and now that template don't work so good). After you make a few passes the body itself will act as the template. The ball-bearing will follow the contours of the previous cuts you made.

I made so many mistakes with the jig saw on my rough cut that I had to move my template around a little in-between router cuts to get a smooth finish. The end result is that my Tele is slightly less wide around the waist than standard Tele's are. Still looks okay!



Note: I wiped this with a quick mineral spirit wash again to 'preview' the grain.