Prairie Custom Guitars

Well what do you know,while I was gone the wood fairy's were here

 A nice thick 2" piece for the main body and a ripped piece for the top

 Time to get out the planer,lets make some dust

 Looks pretty good,lets cut it in half and have a look

 And get that end grain matched up

 Before I put the planer away we better do the top

 Looks good,anyone need some sawdust?

Now I have to decide on the combination

 Well while I think,I will glue

We will let it sit over night

Wow,what a crappy picture

Well lets get the clamps off

 We have a body blank

Now we center our template and do a rough outline

Now its off to the bandsaw to rough out the shape

 Hey it's starting to look like a guitar

Next it's several passes with the router

And we have a tele body

 Well this thing is 1.80" without the top

Really going to have to do some chambering to get the weight down 

Next we do pretty much the same thing for the top 

And this is what we end up with

Well lets see where we are starting at

 OUCH,just about 9 lbs

Well First things first.I will make the "Flat Spot" for the output jack

Kinda forgot to do that on the Cedar build

Off to the bench sander and we have a flatspot

I will match the top after I glue it on

 Now it's time to lay out the chambers

I think we will start with this and see what our weight it

Everything that is colored on has to go

 Well lets make some dust

I should have checked my horoscope

I bet there are holes in my future 

Lets get as much as we can out with the drill press and a  forstner bit

 Much safer this way than trying to use a router for it all

You can see I decided to leave a couple bridges in the middle

It probably wasn't necessary with this being Ash but

we don't want that neck moving 

Lets see how much weight we lost

 2lbs 2.7oz

It's a start 

Now we take the handheld router and trim the edges

Nothing to guide me here so I have to be careful

After I go all the way around with the router it's off to the drillpress

and sanding drum to smooth out the edge

Then back to the router with a pattern bit.Now we just keep making

passes until we have the depth we are looking for

 Starting to shape up

Lets check

Well I went to the post office today.The first,and maybe the coolest part arrived today.I have been looking for an excuse to get some of these made.

 Because of the nature of this build I wanted to add something special

They look much better than they do in the pictures 

Figured I better get back to work on this one

I should have my laser cut f-hole template tomorrow so

I can get the f-hole cut and the top glued on

We want to make sure it is nice and level so we get a good joint

I decided to paint the top cavity black before I glue on the top

Just makes the f-hole stand out better

 The next question is shielding.I won't be able to do a good job of shielding after the top goes on.I guess we will have to decide on this real quick.

Well Barney has decided to go with a set of

Kinman Broadcaster Pickups

Excellent choice.They are a bit more money but in my

opinion worth it.They are hum canceling so shielding wont be an issue

so I give the bottom cavity a light coat of black paint also 

That sounds bad

Well I picked up my new laser cut f-hole template today

I want to thank Dave at Woodcraft by Dave 

for doing an excellent job on the template

THAT LASER IS SO COOL

Well got home and had to give it a try

 I lined it up with my other template and drilled the same holes in it.

Now I can just use a couple pine knobs and have handles too 

 Now this is great.I drilled a couple pilot holes after I attached the top

headed over to the router and a 1/4 flush trim bit,and there it is

 What use to take me at least one evening of cutting,filing,sanding,sanding,sanding

I did in 15 min and it is perfect.Thanks again Dave 

I think I will start page 2 of the Barneycaster

Easier for me to edit

Page 2