routing the body 3

Today I made a little progress - I hogged out a lot of the wood from the pickup cavities and control cavity using forstner bits and my drill press.

After I got as much mahogany out as I was going to get, I decided to start drawing up a pickguard design.
I want to use a mostly Telecaster pickguard shape, but with a sexier upper bout line, to fit the "mostly Telecaster shaped with a sexier upper bout shape" theme of the guitar.

I found an old Stratocaster pickguard in my basement and used it as a reference for a smoother upper bout line. I then hand drew the corners / interface points and it turned out pretty well. The upper left shoulder / corner kind of mimics the carve of the guitar's upper bout, which would be a really nice but subtle design tie. I will spend some more time getting that shoulder curve to match the upper bout curve exactly, and see how that looks. It could be too homogeneous, and if it is, I'll think up something different.

I'm going to keep the pickguard shape under wraps for now, because I am still not 100% on it.

More to come,
Hunter