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Idiots guide to routing needed


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Hi all,does anyone know of any good links to advice on routing techniques?I've used most power tools but not routers and dont want to make mistakes(measure twice cut once).In paticular I have to do a neck pocket,pickup and control cavity.I know some of you out there have made some pretty exotic instruments so I'm sure someone must have the answers.
Will post up pics when my new baby's finnished.
Cheers Just

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[quote name='BigRedX' post='7091' date='May 26 2007, 12:27 PM']Thank you, that's a useful site, and should save me from asking a million stupid questions here - bookmarked.[/quote]

Routers are fairly easy to operate, the secret when doing neck pockets and pickup routes is to make templates and use the template following adapter which fits into the bottom of the router and guides the cutter around the edge of the template. I make my templates from 6mm mdf because its easy to work with.

When you have made your templates, test them on a piece of scrap before you commit to your body blank. When making bass/guitar bodies, I usually make two templates, one for the outline and one for all the cutouts i.e. neck pocket, pickups, bridge. I route the pickups, neck pocket etc when the blank is still a square blank as it makes alignment simpler and then route the profile of the body. This way I hopefully end up with the important bits in a straight line and central in the body.

For bass pickups with lugs (like fenders, musicman's etc) I drill the lugs with the correct size drill bit before routing the pickup, rather than trying to cut them with the router, that way I get a much sharper fit around the lugs.

Finally, routers cut in one direction, which is normally marked on the top (i.e. visible side) of the baseplate. If you move the router in the wrong direction, the machine has a tendency to run away from you and can lead to some unpredicable results! You'll know if your going in the right direction as they squeal like buggery if you are going the wrong way.

Final finally, depending on the wood you are using and the size of cutter and power of your router, you will need to vary your depth of cut. For example, cutting the profile of my project P which is made from swamp ash with a 6.3mm straight cutting bit, I found I could take about 5mm per pass. Cutting mahogany with the same cutter, I could only take around 3mm per pass.

Hope this helps!

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