Maximum effort, minimum results

5-18-21

I finished carving out most of the hole for the electronics. I also needed to drill a hole connecting the pickups to the electronics hole, which is tricky given their locations and sizes. I also needed to drill a hole for the aux cable which gave me an idea. I realized if I continued the aux cable hole I could drill on the opposite end of the electronics hole and continue to both pickup holes as well. And since I was drilling parallel to both front and rear faces of the guitar there was little risk of accidentally blowing out the drill through one of the faces.

With all of the holes drilled out I could now go back to refining the shape of the guitar. I started by trying to use hand tools but that clearly was going to take too long and require tons of effort. So I switched to a little angle grinder with some 40 grit flap disk to remove as much as I could. Since this generated a ton of dust I set myself up out on my driveway. I am sure I made some new friends in the neighborhood.

Once I was happy with the rough shape I focused on cleaning up the area where the neck meets the body. Specifically it try and give more room for the players hands while reaching for the high notes. Since this is delicate work I broke out the hand tools again, specifically my favorite chisel. Work is slow thanks to the weird space I am trying to reach, the grain direction of the wood, and the fact that purpleheart is super dense. I may have to break out the angle grinder again.

I have now entered the part of the project where I will do a lot of work (or so it feels like) but it will look like less is happening. Hooray sanding…