Purposefully ruining a clean slab of wood with the hopes that at some point it will make it better.

5-14-21

Bolstered by the success of making the hole for the neck, I embarked on carving out the rest of the holes in the guitar. I set off on doing the 2 pickups, which means I first needed to know where the strings will be in order to properly position the pickups. My buddy told me this is a 25.5 inch scale (whatever that means) so I used some thin metal wire, measures 25.5 inches on it, then used it as a measuring “stick”, attaching one side to the neck. I could then easily mark where the other end of the wire ended on the body and did this for the 2 outer strings. This allowed me to properly align the bridge and temporally screw it in. I would also do my best to draw where the wire was, to help me align the pickups. I penciled in where the pickups should be and made sure their cover plates wouldn’t intersect with the bridge or neck.

Before going straight into carving out the holes for the pickups on the body slab I decided it would be best if I practiced once or twice first. I’m glad I did because on my first attempt I accidentally went over the lines once or twice. Since the first here isn’t as critical I decided to freehand the holes which is faster but does open up more possible mistakes. My first practice attempt went well enough, other than my one or two mistakes which I could watch out for when it comes down to the real attempt, so I went for it on the body slab. Overall it went fine and since I took it slow in the tricky areas there were no mistakes made.

Once things looks OK for the pickups I went ahead and drilled holes for the knobs, going all the way through the body slab, and of the diameter that I determined was needed to properly fit the knobs and switches. This helped me locate where the electrical “box” will be on the rear of the guitar. After some back and forth discussion with my friend we ended up with a Zebrawood plate that will be inset and screwed in place. After I shaped the zebrawood plate it was once again it was time to freehand carve out another hole in the body slab.