Tele at heart when it comes to the metrics, but I wanted to do something that was "mine" to go with the neck/headstock design I had been noodling with. And what a nice way to leverage a 360mm wide hunk of sapele that I picked up last summer while at a sign-making training class down in Suffolk VA.

So I came up with a double cut with a top contour that favors arm relief like a Strat and with a belly cut. Both serve for weight reduction, too. The cuts and contours were done using Vectric's molding tool paths that Alex Navaro featured in a video not long ago...a little easier than modeling them in 3D and faster, more efficient when cutting. This one is for humbuckers, but I can easily flip the design to Tele-style single coils. This is designed for two-sided machining.

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I cut the back side first which includes a slight round-over for the edge, the ferrule recesses, the control pocket and recess for the cover and for this design, the belly and horn relief cuts

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Then the top gets cut.

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It's important to note that the CNC is just cutting out the body in the same way one would do it manually. It still needs the same refinement and hand work to complete the job. The big advantage to using the CNC is it removes some of the drudgery work, adds consistency and most importantly for a "new" design, provides the ability to visualize things and work out details before a single piece of expensive wood gets touched.

I did a little sanding on the contours before releasing the body from the waste because it held things flat and stable. From there, all of the machining marks were removed from the top and bottom with 80 grit on my ROS. The body still needs to get the edges treated at the OSS once I have a large table project out of the way and then a whole lot more sanding to get it where it needs to be. But here are some photos that illustrate the design and contouring I ended up with this first iteration of the design.

(just wiped down with DNA, which is why there may be some color spots)

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