Time for an update. First of all: I made the sound holes! I did it with a fretsaw (wich is quite a misleading term in the context of guitar building I think) and it came out very nice again. To ensure myself the technique worked and the holes wouldn’t create weak spots in the top, I did a ‘test run’ on a piece of scrap first. It was nerve-racking and a very slow process, but it came out that smooth, it almost didn’t require any sanding afterwards. One funny thing was that my saw couldn’t do cuts in all directions, because it didn’t fit around the whole top, so I needed to flip the saw and put it in backwards sometimes to reach those spots. Sawing backwards with a fretsaw isn’t ideal because you can’t push the blade through, but it’s doable.

Then I got to the control cavity. I want to handle this before the top goes on, so I don’t have to do a lot of routing with the body lying on the top (I don’t want scratches on it). I took a piece of ‘scrap’ mahogany and, since I haven’t any band- or bladesaw, sawed a 8 mm thick piece of with a hand saw. I routed it flat to about 6 mm and after I’ve made the cavity, I will cut it to the right size.

I want to get a nice and clean control cavity, so I am going to route it with a template guide (not with the ball-bearing), so my template needs to be a little oversized. 2,15 mm larger to be precise. I made some computer drawings for that, printed and cut them out. Finally, I cut the templates from plywood with my jigsaw and sanded them smooth. Next step will be routing the cavity and shaping the cover…