The Headless Body

This represents two weekends worth of work on the headless body. The photo to the left is where the where I stopped Sunday evening. Below is documentation of the progress that got me there.

I started by routing holes in the ash back for the wiring. Then I glued two pieces of curly maple together with a center piece of pau ferro. I cut small grooves on the sides of the maple for clamping. After the maple and pau ferro dried, I glued mahogany veneer to the back.

After the top dried, I glued it to the body. There was about a half inch of overhang on the sides. This was intentional. Later, I cut these edges close to the body, then I routed the edges flat.

The top and the edges are still ruff at this weekend. I started this weekend by using my router to plane the top of the body. I then used the orbital sander to sand from 80 grit to 220 grit. 

After planing and sanding the top, I used the router to smooth and straighten the sides. Here you can see the thin mahogany veneer sandwiched between the ash back and the maple top.  

Here the new headless body sits next to the old Steinberger P-Series body I won on eBay last year. The dimension on mine are slightly longer than the Steinberger. This is to accommodate the neck dimensions. I did not have plans for the neck, so I really was working from scratch on this build. Visually, the only Steinberger aficionados will notice. 

Next weekend, I will cut the rear to match the Steinberger body and route the neck pocket and perhaps pickup and the electronics cavity on the back.