Day 10: Finishing the Pickup Notch

I continued to work on the notch that will hold the passive pickup and bridge. The piece that came with the pickup is a crappy plastic thing that looks pretty horrible.

I decided to replace it with an African Blackwood piece of my own making. I want this to be a quality instrument for Reed, not something thrown together from cheap Chinese parts. In order to more effectively carve the notch, I decided to stop for a few minutes and make a "bench hook" suggested by a luthier friend in Holland.

I made this "hook" from scrap wood. As you can see, it's intended to hold a piece more securely as one works his luthier magic on it. In this case, I used it to hold the body while I chiseled away at the notch.

The added stability helped me make quick work of the carving using a 1/2" chisel. You can see from the photo above that I don't have all of the tiny pieces cut, yet, but I'll have them cut and glued up this week so I can move on to routing out a hole in the back for the preamp.

Until next time...