Guitar Maker
Christian Hatstatt
routing in depth step by step.
Here you can see master luthier Yuji in action, starting the routing of the pickup cavities on a Sonnet guitar.
It is body time! same as with the necks we start with 2-piece bodies which we cut to shape with the bandsaw and then use the pinrouter to shape to size and make the electronics and tremolo cavities. Here we have Sonnet bodies that require pickup cavity routing which we are going to show in the next pictures.
Meanwhile, we are also working on 2 Velvet guitars for which we are preparing the maple tops that will be carved.
and this is what the neck looks like when all frets are in and the ends are cut. Of course, we will send quite some more time later on shaping and crowning the frets.
We have moved forward and glued the rosewood fretboard on the maple neck, furthermore we have routed the fretboard radius to 11” and prepared the slots for the frets. Here we have young japanese luthier Matsumoto-San (yes, like the city!) working on the fret press to insert each individual fret into the board.
There we go, we routed the neck profile and now the rest has to be done by hand sanding!
there we go, the routing of the back of the neck has started!
once the pinrouter is set, we use one of the many tools we have made inhouse, this is where we will mount the neck to a precise position in order to route the C shape on the back of the neck.
the same pinrouter, here we have changed the bit and we are getting ready to shape the back of the neck to a basic C shape.
There you see the necks once the fretting side is plane and the top of the headstock has been routed.
There is a machine we are using a lot: the pinrouter. Here we are routing the top of the headstock a few millimeters in order to create that string angle to the nut (which will be installed later of course)
Here we have moved forward and performed the following actions:1) routed the neck egdes to shape 2) routed the channel 3) installed the single truss rods (1924 style), no extra tubing meaning that the rout has to be tight. As the truss rod channel is curved, we also glued in (4) the cuved maple filet which ultimately is what will help to set the neck relief.
We repeat the action a dozen times as we generally prepare necks (and bodies) for 6 to 12 guitars. And this marks the end of the “easy part” as we will now start to rout the truss rod channel and insert the maple filet.
There we go, this is the blank for a Sonnet neck!
