Shape
There are several ways to shape a guitar body. Of course one can just hack and slay his way toward a custom shape using freehand tools. Since I didn’t have any experience in making electric guitars prior to this build, I thought starting easy would be a safer choice. Most commonly, guitar bodies are carved using routing templates. These silhouette body shapes are made from a thin sheet of wood or plastic. Oftentimes, they include guides for the several pockets which are sunk into the body for electrical parts, hardware and the neck.
What you need
bandsaw or jigsaw
router
silhouette routing bit
body routing template
clamps
Picking a Shape
You can find an abundance of routing templates for all sorts of guitar models and pieces. I ordered mine at Deutsches Tonholz and you should, too! It’s a small online store for all sorts of guitar wood, templates and various guitar crafting utensils. Thomas actually gave me several hints for my build and was just an all around nice guy. I visited his shop in Dresden, where he also builds custom guitars and carves body blanks from high quality tone wood. We had a good chat and of course, I couldn’t leave without buying some material for any potential future projects.
Anyway, for the Skate or Don’t guitar, I intuitively felt like a Jaguar style guitar shape would be suitable. It’s one of my favorite shapes, played by one of my favorite musicians.
Speaking of favorite shapes… Remember how I talked about placing my Tele on the unattached deck planks for good measure? Well, eyeballing stuff and not thinking thoroughly on consequences comes at a price. When the routing template arrived, I excitedly ripped it from the packaging.
My first thought was: “Wow, this belly looks hella thick.”. I placed it on the blank and quickly realized that a Jag is a lot wider than a Tele.
Dear guitarists, I am aware of my sacreligious mistakes.
Sorry, not sorry...
Do a Kickflip before you judge me!
Rough Cutting
Some time later I was back at the workshop and knew now that I was going for a custom shape after all. First, I placed the template on the body blank and traced the silhouette using a pencil. I did it in a way that left a maximum area of the Jaguar shape on the material. For now, this left a straight outline at the position of the armrest.
Once the silhouette was transferred to the wood, I used a bandsaw to roughcut the shape. Jigsawing will do just fine, too. During this step, I made sure to maintain roughly 3-5mm of space outwards from the drawn bounds.
A rough cut is important because a router would not be able to dig through an entire block of wood, without taking damage. The more precise your roughcut is, the gentler it’ll be on your router.
“But don’t get greedy, it is always easier to remove than to attach wood”, says the guy who didn’t leave enough material for a full armrest.
You don’t need to carve all in one go. If the direction of your cut moves too close towards the outline, move it out and start again at another position. Turning your saw in a narrow curve, can lead it to break.
A neat trick to avoid this is to first cut straight lines from the outside and in perpendicular direction towards the traced silhouette. Stop at 3mm before reaching it. Repeat this several times until you’ve got them cut all around the body. These lines will now give you “checkpoints”. Meaning, as you carve along the actual shape you will take out chips of wood, leaving safe spots to realign your saw. Unfortunately, I found out about this only after cutting my shape.
Precision Cutting
Now, fix the template back onto the body. You can either do this using clamps or double sided tape.
You need a bit that has a bearing attached to the top and a blade at the bottom. Configure the depth, such that the bearing will touch the template and the blade cuts into the overhanging wood. Bearing and blade have exactly the same diameter, so don’t be afraid to cut into your template.
It’s actually better, if a small part of the blade is still at template height. Sinking the bit too deep may leave a torn edge right between the bearing and the blade. As long as you keep the router at a 90 degree angle and the bearing touches the template you’ll be fine.
If, like me, you did not dare or manage to get a precise roughcut, be careful while routing into wide sections of material. Routers are more likely to drift off uncontrollably the more wood they dig into. At those sections, take off small amounts of material before continuing your path along the silhouette.
Once you’ve moved around the body from the top side, flip the body. Switch to a router bit with a bearing at the end of a blade. Configure the depth of your router, such that the bearing will touch the precisely carved top section as soon as the blade has cut through overhanging wood. Roll the bearing all around the body and you should be left with a shape fitting the one given by your template.
To fix my straight armrest, I used the curvature of the template. I adjusted the template position along the armrest section to receive a smooth outline.
Wow, this is becoming an actual guitar body! I was stoked like hell to have started working on it.
