schmolze studios

So I’m building an electric guitar from scratch. I’ve been tinkering with them for a while now, and have built a few from parts, but this is gonna be a whole ‘nother ballgame. I’ve spent the last week or so aquiring tools and ordering wood and parts, and I’m about ready get started.

Here’s the design I came up with by doodling:

 

I then took a picture of the sketch, imported it into TurboCAD, and created the following result after a bunch of experimenting:

 

Steve hooked me up with a large format printer from work, so we went over there and I printed several copies of the design full-size:

 

Then I cut one of them out, taped it to some 1/2″ MDF, and traced the lines with an Exacto knife. I rough-cut the MDF with a band saw, then used a spindle sander to smooth the template to the exact shape of the inscribed knife marks:

 

I followed the same procedure to create templates for the neck pocket, the pickup cavities, the fretboard and the headstock:

 

So far so good. The wood should arrive on Monday, at which point I’ll have more to do. In the meantime, here are a couple shots of my super-slick basement shop: