Oh man oh man. Thanks to Eric Burton I now know of a new place to buy my lumber from. They have so many different species its like a toy store. I found some incredible sapele with a super tight grain and a very dark color. It’s gonna look stunning with some oil and wax. Two bodies worth of sapele only cost me 30 bucks. That’s less than half the price I pay for one blank online.

The icing on the cake was the chunk of Burl Maple I found. It’s super flamed and has some incredible color variety. I was a bit more expensive but if I resaw it it’ll yield two tops, one of which will be bookmatched. Maybe both if I arrange it correctly. These will be special builds and if I keep it simple, one may be up for sale. I might make one a singlecut and one a slightly modified version of my super strat shape.

Next step is to make an MDF template for the neck and fretboard. Learning from my last build, the neck heel needs to be absolutely square. Otherwise the neck pocket will bulge like on the redwood build.

I’m learning how to make the templates on the free CAD program eMachineShop. Then ill just print them out and have them precision cut somewhere.