Let's pick things up a bit!
That was terrible wasn't it?
I'll try for redemption through lutherie
Continuing on from the pickup routing template layout from last time, I line up the five flat sides, screwed them down and routed out the middle.
My cover making process goes like this. First I make a paper drawing and print off a few copies. I make the pickup dummy out of one. I use another to make the negative template that will rout into the body, and I use them on the pickup cover itself, plus the routing template for the cavity inside the pickup cover.
I used four straight pieces of MDF screwed down onto a larger board of MDF and routed out the template (everything you see is recycled
). I then glued little half-dowels to the sides of the template to create little standoffs for screw holes.
I aligned that template over the location on the back of the walnut pickup cover and routed a cavity 18.5mm deep. The pickup cover is 21mm thick.
The large cavity is a tight fit for the Geezer Butler EMG pickup, but easily allows a person to swap the locations of the pickups if they want the reverse P layout. I plan to attach these to the covers using double-sided tape and foam on the backs to hold them in place. If someone wants something more permanent, it's easily doable, but for now I want to keep these easily swappable.
I also drill pilot holes from both sides of the cover after measuring carefully, and then use a forstner on top so that the hex keyed cap bolts will sit flush with the surface of the pickup.
Now that its ready to have the exterior shape routed, it's over to the bandsaw to be cut close to the line. I first tape over the top to avoid marring it too much and save me the trouble of tons of sanding later. I then screw it down through the mounting holes to the routing template, which is the same pickup dummy from before.
I go around it a couple of times just taking off some of the outside, but not routing all the way to the template. When there's around 1mm left, I climb cut (go around in reverse, against the bit) the last portion, which leaves a cleaner surface IME.
The pickup is very snug in the rout, but this will be adjusted when the sides are sanded back smooth.
And with that done, we can now do a full mockup!
Now it's a crapload of fiddly detail work getting it ready for finish, but I'll be sure to bore you with some of it.