Anything can be fixed
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Sitting on the sofa ignoring The Irishman and started contemplating where to mount the switch and pots.
The maple top is 7mm thick, the type of switch I have has 5mm long thread, (which is long for this type of swtich).
I routered the back of the f holes (here) but didn’t have the foresight to router the area under the switch.
I’ll have to bodge it somehow. Bollocks.
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Drill through then plug the hole 
No idea if this would work, and definitely would need trying on some scrap…
Bend some heavy fencing wire in a right angle.
Leave one end the length of a drill bit, trim the other to a little more than the radius of your pot.
File a flat on the short leg upper surface.
Glue on some abrasive, sander belt or the like.
Put in drill chuck, put abrasive leg through hole and gently and carefully pull back towards you with the drill running slowly.
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Having slept on it…
A round nose router bit, bushing and template will allow me to do what I should have done underneath on the top.
Like this.
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Great solution and looks very classy!
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If you’re just going to recess the switch then that will work fine.
If you want to recess the pots too then it would be worth checking that the bushings on them are short enough not to force the knobs to sit too high above the recessed surface. If there’s an issue with that then you might slide a packing piece onto each of the pots’ bushings to ‘undo’ the recess you’ve routered inside the body. Then you just need to be sure that the pots won’t foul on the inside rear surface of the body.
If the pots frustrate the external recessing plan then you could go back to looking at some way of internally recessing the switch. Since you’ve got the f-holes you could consider inserting some sort of cutter piece (without a shaft) in through them and then screwing a shaft into it through the switch hole. Unscrewing it when you’re done cutting might be a challenge, but we like a challenge, don’t we 
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How does that work if the issue is the length of the switch underneath? Shabby head is likely resulting in me not understanding the problem.
The maple is 7mm thick. The threaded part of the switch that needs to protrude through the wood (so I can fit a nut to secure it), is less than 7mm.
I need to top to be around 3.5mm thick for that to happen.
There’s no issue with the switch’s overall length.
Better than no head at all
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Understood now. Just a thought before you cut wood, is it possible for a machinist to make an extension sleeve for the threaded part. Might mean going from say an m4 to an m6.
Something like this might help?
Obviously you would also need a short stud to screw into it
Thats good idea, the thread’s OD is 12mm, it would probably look wrong if it was any bigger imo.
I’ll take my chances with the router, i have a good amount of scrap maple to practice with.
I wonder what other surprises are waiting for me…?
Have been chipping away at this over the holiday,
Wenge fretboard with aluminum tube fret markers filled with saw dust
Added a small table to my mini spindle sander - perfect size for guitar building
The Sapele inlay glued into the scarf joint has worked out as i’d hoped.
Happy with that.
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Have you seen Crimson Guitars YouTube channel? he’s currently doing a hollow bodied guitar out of a £10k slab of some amazing New Zealandish timber.
Yes I’ve seen it, they claim the timber is 42000 years old. Given the cost and rarity I do not understand why they used if for a hollow body - turning the majority of the body’s wood into very expensive sawdust.
I find Ben Crow’s videos painfully slow to watch, but I do perserver with content that interests me.
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Didn’t the client (a rich muso, from what I’ve been able to gather) choose it?
Apparently it’s not a great choice for the body, too soft, and, other than looks, not fantastic as a top either. But there you go.
He seems to be trying to channel Bill Bailey!
I’ll take your word for it, I can’t be arsed to watch it all.
While we’re talking about youtube… this channel is AWSOME!
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Faffing around with a guide bush, bowl bit and some circle templates. I reckon it’ll be ok when the time comes to do this for real.
(ignore blue stain)
Will recess the 2 pots as well
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