Pickup Shells
I suppose this could serve as tutorial for making pickup shells...if you happen to making them a$$-backwards, starting with an oddly-shaped non-rectangular shell cover that is already in final form including its radius. In other words, if you're a guitar-building masochist.
Printed out CAD of the shells, including the string paths, in reverse. Mounted these to the backs of the shell covers. Mounted the shell covers to the radiused caul.
Placed the pickup polepiece spacers that came with the pups on the covers, as a final confirmation that all is as it should be.
Taped the first spacer in place,
and drilled it. Used a brad point bit, but since mine is undersized, followed it with a conventional bit, which was closer to true size.
Repeat for other two shells.
Freehand routed into the shell covers, to the proper depth. This was a PIA, between working with the dust extraction cone being on the router, the fact that it's a 3-1/4 HP router and not small at all, and mostly the fact that the paper would curl up instead of cutting off, making it very difficult to see where the wood is actually cut. It turned out a bit sloppy, but it doesn't matter, as long as the rout is consistently the right depth, is large enough, and is not so large that it blows out a side, which it didn't.
Finished by sharpening the corners of the pocket with a chisel rather than using a smaller diameter router bit.
Got the covers off the board, removed the paper and tape, and glued them to a thicknessed piece of wood that will serve as the back half of the shell. Presently in the clamps.
Before gluing, I tried to insert the pickups, but the holes are still too tight. They will have to be opened up with a file or sandpaper, as I recall other people doing.
