Picking things up!

Right from the beginning I'd decided I was making my own pickups and they were to be made to match the body.  I'm aiming for humbucker sized P90 style pickups.

 So I started cutting up some of the body off cut which had been put to one side specifically.

 Using a saw and chisel I started making the bobbin to wind the wire around.

 One side done...

 One bobbin done...

 Two bobbins done!

 Drilling the pole piece holes...

 A quick look to see how well they match the guitar.

The bobbins are finished with the holes spaced to match the string spacings and counter sunk for the pole piece screw head.

Pickup mounting rings are to be made some of the rosewood I used for the fingerboard.

 Cutting out the centre block.

 ...and fitting quite nicely.  I think they look rather quite gorgeous even if I do say so myself.

Next job is to get some wire wound on to those bobbins!

Getting Neck Deep...

 Now that the neck is pretty much finished I can make a start on the socket...

I marked out the location and using the trusty brace and bit started removing wood...

 ...Getting there...

That's all the holes drilled, now for some chisel action!

 

 However hard you think oak is (if you've never worked with it before) multiply that thought by 10!

 After much re-sharpening of the chisels the socket is pretty much done

 With the neck in place...

It's not a perfect fit yet and will need some tweaking before gluing but hey it aint looking bad!

Necking it part 3

After slicing off the bulk of the neck blank material to make the fret markers I reduced the thickness of the neck.  I opted to using a surform due the grain of the different pieces of wood going in different directions causing tear out with my plane.

 

Sanding the back flat with the trusty manual belt sander.

Then started shaping the neck taper by shaping the start of headstock ears.

Ready for the neck taper shaping...

 

That's the neck taper shaped down to the line ready for the headstock to be glued on.

I also put a couple of screws in to where the carbon fibre rods will go in order to try and prevent slipping whilst being clamped...

...and it didn't work...  Oh well, it's not that far out of line and will only be seen from the back once the headstock facia is fitted.

Headstock ears glued one

 Marked out with the same design as my last build

 

 A few hours of playing with a fret saw, files and sandpaper

 How it looks with the fingerboard

And using some of the carbon fibre rod off cut I added some to the scarf joint to reinforce the glue joint.

Well it's increasingly guitar shaped now!