It’s been  while since I posted any updates about the “Bootstang” that I had cut a template for. Given my track record for starting projects and them often BUT ONLY SEEMINGLY disappear into the ether, I would forgive you for thinking this project had been Bermuda triangulated. 

Well we are still sailing over troubled waters, however as captain of this majestic ship life raft, known simply as Bones I feel it’s my duty to inform you we are attempting to cross this treacherous passage, full steam ahead.

This offset build will be a challenge as I’m using some rather primitive methods. For starters, I’m without a band saw, a thicknesser, a heavy duty router, and common sense. 

First shot shows the cut out template atop of what I am using for the body. It’s Queensland Kauri Pine which is of the Agathis species. The amount of work that went into choosing the timber to use for this build went a little something like this at the timber yard I frequent -

“Hey, do you have any Mahogany in these dimensions?" 

No.

"Anything in these dimensions apart from this slab of pine?”

No. 

“I’ll take this piece of Pine then please”

And so it was, is and forever shall be. The timber itself is reasonably nice to work with, though for a Pine it is not at all soft, it actually reminds more so of the last time I worked with some Rock Maple. It’s very dry but not too brittle and even though I am a firm believer that what you hear most of in a guitar is the pickups, I’m curious to hear what effect if any, this timber “choice” will have. 

The second shot shows my first aborted attempt at roughing out the body with simply a long handsaw and a coping saw. I did make a small attempt to file some shape into the lower cut out but first, onto picture three. 

In which we see the eternal battle of ‘man’s struggle with the choices he has made’ in full effect. It’s not that bad really, it’s just me trying to thickness some timber with the wrong tools! Why am I not using a plane? Well dear reader, I’m glad you asked… (not really). Basically, my plane is unable to get with the program as my sharpening stone is missing and at the time I just wanted to get on with things. So, a few cross cuts with the saw and a few knocks with a chisel and it’s almost at the right thickness for this build which is 40mm instead of the 50mm it started at. 

There has been a fair amount of progress since starting this project 24 hours ago and I’ll get some update pics on here just as soon as my hands are capable of working small buttons again because, I’m a city boy with city hands and this is a lot of work. Seriously, I’m typing this to y'all on a giant foot sized floor keyboard, pretending I’m Tom Hanks in Big,