Part 3: Templates and Tracing

Within a half hour of getting the Squier home I had the strings and neck off of the guitar. There was a very good reason for this: If I had started playing the guitar I might have wanted to keep it - as-is.

I played the guitar a couple of times on a couple of different days at Mr. Music - enough to know that I liked the feel of the neck. But I only plugged the guitar into an amp once at the store - and that was only to check that everything worked. I knew that the neck was straight and that it was comfortable. I didn't want to know anything else about this guitar. Sometimes ignorance is best.

About a week or two had gone by since I'd glued the wood together. In that time I had sanded the top and bottom of the wood with 36, 60, 100 and 150 grit sand paper (in that order) with a power sander.



To quote a buddy of mine, "That thing works like a champ." As you can see it was snowing mahogany in my basement. Dust masks are your friend.

At this point I'm mostly trying to remove imperfections and glue residue. I don't need a finished surface yet because there is so much to do.

Next I tied down the Squier body to the wood and traced the body with a Sharpie. If I ever do this again, I would use a marker/pen with a thinner tip. The sharpie was a very wide line to try and cut to. With a thinner line I would have cut slower (and probably more precise). I wasn't really concerned with all of the bleed from the marker as I knew at some point I would be rounding off all of the sharp edges before finishing the guitar.

Another tip: When tying (or clamping) the guitar to the wood to trace it - try and line up the center line of the guitar with the glue seam of the wood. Guitars are not always symetrical (this Squier was close but not 100%). I found that centering the glue seam on the four holes drilled in the neck pocket (where the four screws go into the neck to hold it to the body) was a good place to start. If your guitar is close to symetrical you can also try using the hole drilled at the butt of the guitar for the guitar strap as a baseline centerpoint as well. I ended up eyeballing it a little. Your milage may vary.

.

When I was done tracing I had this:


Hmmm... It almost looks like there is a Tele in there - waiting to get out.