This came in as a 3-piece (pre-joined) sapele billet, a pair of spalted maple billets for the top, and a premade multipiece with ebony fretboard neck.
Today we will be turning this into a superstrat.
The Process:
I never did take a picture of the raw sapele billet, but pictured above is the maple pieces and the sapele body which was rough-cut to within 1/4" of the final shape.
On the body wood, since it was 3 equal pieces joined together, it was decided to draw the centerline from the exact center of the center piece.
This worked out great, since the edge pieces have a similar ribbon-like figure, while the center piece has a beautiful waterfall figure.
Next order of business was to glue the maple top together as a bookmatch.
So the two pieces are a near-perfect mirror of themselves, split down the center.
The gobar deck may well be overkill for this task, but it sure gets the job done.
While the top is being joined, the top of the body – which will get a cap glued to it – is prepped and flattened in the joiner.
The finished body will be at a thickness of 1-3/4", so we subtract out the 1/4" cap, and add 1/32" for sanding.
This brings the sapele thickness to 1-17/32".
Time to scrape off the glue squeezeout and sand/flatten our newly-bookmatched maple top.
Once the top is flat, it is rough-cut to within 1/4" of the body billet
The cap is then cut so that it overhangs the sapele by 1/16" per edge, then pinned in 2 different places: one over the tremolo cutout, and one in the neck pocket.
The dry fit, pictured above, looks excellent.
Once again with the gobar deck, the top is glued to the body and let sit overnight.
The following day, everything is removed from the deck and the joinery is inspected.
The template is attached to the billet with the centerlines matched up, and the routing begins.
Once the tremolo cavity and outer perimeter are routed, the routing is paused just shy of the maple cap.
Sapele is a much denser wood and thus much less susceptible to tearout when routing into the grain.
Maple on the other hand, especially the much softer spalted variety, isn’t remotely as forgiving.
The MDF template is removed from the back face, and the routing is completed with a combination of top-bearing and bottom-bearing router bits, depending on the grain direction of each respective area.
Perimeter routing is now finished, there is no tearout, and everything looks great.
The tremolo cavity is finished off without the template.
Then the neck pocket and neck pickup cavity is routed.
The top edge of the body is rounded over with the router.
With a bit of finesse, there was no tearout despite the uniform direction of the roundover bit.
The back face is rounded, and the electronics cavity route is marked out in pencil.
Back cavity is routed out, also the ledge for the cover.
Then the bridge humbucker is routed.
The various cavities are then connected via drill bit, to accommodate the wiring.
At some point, I did a bellycut on the back of the body, but I forgot to document it with photos.
Just know that it is very tedious.
Final sanding to 220-grit on the sapele, and 180-grit on the top, with 320-grit used on the end grain.
Now the first coat of oil is applied to the sapele.
It darkens it up quite a bit, which is awesome.
The maple really comes alive, however with the first oil coat.
Now the first coat of oil is applied, and the long drying process begins.
While the oil coats are drying, the cavity cover is routed out.
Here it is attached to the template.
And here it is done, ready for finish.
Oil is done, and I didn’t want to miss 2 good days of applying the poly, so I took it home and added coats over the weekend.
A few days later, all of the poly is applied, then level sanded and buffed out to a high gloss.
The cavities are shielded with black carbon conductive paint.
And the cavity cover is shielded with copper, because why not.
Everything is then put together, just as a normal build.
Since there will be no pickup rings, I decided to paint the brass colored pickup nubs black, using carbon paint.
A small detail really, but to me it makes a huge difference.
Now the wiring is done, time to put the rest of the guitar together.
Before the neck was bolted on, I took the time to level the frets, since it would be a shame to have this beautiful looking guitar, but not be able to have superlow action.
Basically, the frets had to be leveled so that the guitar could play as good as it looks!
