The Tele Build - Part 2

Having brought the body to its final shape in part 1, part 2 will cover the routing of various pockets, such as the neck and control cavity routes and also the alignment of the bridge and neck.

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The first route to be done was the neck pocket, this is so that the pickup pockets and bridge mounting holes could then be located accurately from the neck alignment. Careful measuring means that this isn't actually necessary, however for the sake of caution I decided to do it this way.

After attaching the neck pocket template to the body using double sided tape the body was ready for routing.



This was achieved once again using a template bearing bit, and using several passes until the pocket was at the required depth. This process was made longer by slight splinter out on the treble side that required re-gluing and then subsequently re-routing more carefully, luckily this quick repair turned out great, and is not visible!



Above you can see the neck sitting in the pocket after I was done. Routing then continued with the control cavity pocket as this was located on the same template.

The next step was to locate the bridge, once the appropriate scale length had been marked out on the body, cotton thread was used in conjunction with the bridge to act as "outer strings" , this allows for easy visual alignment and ensures the the bridge is located dead on for the neck.



Once visual alignment was confirmed accurate by measuring the distances from the outside "strings" to the edge of the fingerboard the bridge mounting holes were then drilled.

Next up, pup routes and beyond!