Fret polishing is a slow laborious process. Masking tape over the fretboard, (having sliced the tape in ever thinner strips as the fret spacing reduces up the neck).
Rub the frets with 320, 400, 600. 800 and 1000 grit paper, go careful as the nickel alloy fret material is soft.
Once the filing and sanding scratches are removed, some Autosol and a Dremel make reasonably light work to refine the finish to a brightly polished shine.
Routing control and pick up cavities, in my head this was 30mins work, 2+ hours later…
The centre line of the guitar had moved marginally, approx. 1mm at the scale length point (Fender scale is 25.5" from the front of the nut) as a result of routing the neck pocket. That isn’t a problem and to be expected I guess, but it did mean having to remeasure and mark out again.
I bought a ready made template for the P90 pickups I’m going to install. I also have a template for the control cavity. Unlike the neck pocket where I fashioned a template to fit my hand made neck, these cavities are not critical when it comes to dimensions +/- 1mm is fine.
Pickup template secured to the body
Forstner bit to hog out some material, making it easier for the router.
An f’ing climb cut with the router - you twat.
First and last time that happens I’m sure. Luckily I will get away with it - it’ll be covered by the pickguard! Will add some filler at some point. TF I didn’t bugger up the other one.
I ordered a mat black pickguard in the week for a standard telecaster. It needed modifying to fit the lager size pickup. Used the template to increase the narrow opening.
Starting to accumulate hardware, keeping the postman busy.
Lots more faf to come, including drilling a good number of holes, a load of sanding and scraping the glue residue and general grime from the fretboard. Exciting stuff.
