Don't Lose Control

Next job is carving out the control cavity.  Whilst there is only going to be three controls - Volume, Tone and Selector Switch I've decided to allow space for a pre-amp and battery due to the pickups being relatively under wound and probably not very powerful.



First of all I drilled through where the controls are going.  This helps me to plan the cavity location on the back and will also allow me to see how close I am to the top when I'm carving out the back.



Again lots of holes drilled to remove lots of material prior to reaching for the drill.



Half way there, this meranti is a flip of a lot softer and easier going than the oak was!



Done, just needs a bit of smoothing out.



Sandpaper on a piece of dowel, perfect for getting those curves nice and smooth.  I then checked that the controls fitted okay.



Now for the cover rebate



Nearly there...



One rebate finished



Mounting holes drilled and counter sunk.



And fitted, quite nicely too!



I want the control knobs to be made out of the same rosewood as fingerboard and pickup surrounds.



First of all I cut out some rough shapes about the same size (there's three so I have a spare) and taped them together...



Then using sandpaper I started rounding them off...



...taking shape...



Roughly how they'll look in place.  At the minute I'm not too happy with how they're shaping so I've ordered some pre-made ones from Amazon to use for the mean time while I come up with a better method of hand making them without power tools.