Template
As you are probably aware of by now, the most essential tool for carving an electric guitar body is a router. To cut precisely using this tool, you should use templates. Templates act like stencils and will help you trace the silhouette of a cavity. While several online shops sell them for most common guitar parts, it is fairly easy to make them yourself - even without a CNC milling machine.
In this post, I’ll illustrate how I made a routing template for the electronics cavity of my guitar. This is the pocket underneath the control plate. It is where the input jack will lead and all where the electronic circuit will get wired. I used a similar technique for various other purposes throughout my build.
What you need
the piece you want to create a template for
wood for your template
straight edged wood as guides
drill
screws
pencil
First, I grabbed a piece of plywood to hold the template. I transferred the boundaries of my control plate onto it, by tracing its outlines using a pencil. Through the center I drew a straight line. This should make it easier to eventually align the template on the body. Additionally, I marked off where the bolts holding the plate would be sitting. To ensure that the plate will cover the entire routed pocket, I factored in some inset for the bounds of this template. That gave me the inner lines you can see in the image below.
Now, I started attaching straight pieces of junk wood along the inner lines of my sketch. These will act as a preliminary routing template. While double-sided tape might be sufficient for this, it doesn’t hurt to take extra precautions to make sure they won’t slip. So I decided to use screws.
Countersink
Remember to countersink your screws. If they stick out of the surface, they will likely impede your routing and may therefore lead to an imprecise template.
Rough-cut
Create an easy starting point by using a wide wood drill. Then take out a rough chunk of material using a jigsaw.
Finally, I used my router and traced the preliminary bounds. The depth was set, such that the bearing would touch the junk wood, once I got to the outline. In order to maintain sharpness of the router bit, I took time to carve into the wood and removed multiple thin layers until reaching the bounds.
Finally, I took off the junk wood and cleaned up the result with some manual sanding. This got rid of some minor wood chipping and left me with a decently smooth surface. I made sure not to sand too vigorously. Else, I might have lost a straight edge on the template boundaries.
As you can see, the diameter of your router bit will determine the edge radius of the template you create. Especially if you want to create a template with a snug fit for any piece of hardware, it is worth to consider that.
