Routing the cavities are straightforward. As with any work that demand precision it’s always best to work with Jigs or Fixtures. In this case for the Stratocaster styled single coils I used a scrap piece of MDF.
I began with a template for the size and shape of the pickups. Crazy, I know but I had a thin piece of padauk (the red piece of wood) which I used for the pickup template. Next on the MDF, I laid out center lines and marked the location of the back of each pickup hole. Using the padauk template I marked each cut-out, drilled and then used a scroll saw to rough cut out each shape. A little work with files and sandpaper quickly resulted in a usable jig.
The jig was clamped in place and the cavities were cut using a router with flush cutting straight bit.
I took the same approach to creating the cavity in the back for the electronics. The only difference was that I marked the location on both the front and back of the body. Using the outline on the front I correctly spaced the holes for the potentiometers and pickup switch.
The greatest challenge was cutting the narrow slot for the pickup switch. I concluded it is this challenge that causes people to use the chrome plates common to telecaster guitars.
Wanting to avoid a plate, I carefully marked the dimensions of the slot and carefully cut along these line using a fresh razor blade in a box cutter. Unconventional for sure…. but it worked. Using the blade and a dental pick repetatively I cut and scraped through the first 1/16″ or so. Then using a 1/16 drill bit I drilled several holes through the body within this channel and worked the bit back and forth like a mill to remove as much material as possible. I finished the slot with progressively finer grits of sandpaper cut into narrow long strips.
