First off, I taped some double sided tape onto the template so that I could line it up and fasten it onto the body. There are also a couple more holes in the template; those are just for the electronics.
Here it is attached to the body blank:
Then, the daunting task of routing the body began. The holes in the template were cut 3/32 of an inch larger than I intended the actual cavities in the body to end up. This is because the router bit needs a guide, which offsets the bit 3/32 of an inch from the template. This is what it looks like:
Then, I cut it!
It was a lengthy process, because the bit only liked to cut down about a 5/8 of an inch at a time, so I had to do two passes to route out the switch cavity and the pickup cavity.
The next challenge is routing out the outside. Since the bit has a bearing guide instead of an offset base guide, I am forced to cut down a full inch at a time. Because I will be cutting so much away at a time, I decided to do a pass around the guitar with a band saw leaving about a quarter inch of space so the router bit will only be doing half of the work.
This is where my adventure stops for the day, but I plan to do some more work tomorrow!
