dremel

[donnyII]

Is a dremmel an ok tool to route out guitar bodies? If not, can you use anything besides an actual router?

[aen]

It's OK as long as you don't show the results to Aug.

[Stereordinary]

A lot of people use Laminate Trimmers, which are basically smaller routers.  A Dremel is a great tool for touch-up work, but it would likely take ages to remove a lot of wood, like enough to make a body.

[donnyII]

what about routing a trem. or pickup cavity?

[jrkirkish]

You could probably get by with a forstner drill bit and a hand chisel.

Of course, if you go that way, it would really help if you had a drill press.

[ohm-men]

Well, I routed a whole trem cavety with a dremel. Not to difficult. Just take your time. Although a router does a much cleaner job and you have more control over it. But in case you don't have acces to a router, the dremel will work. I dit not use the dremel round router, but instead I used the sanding tool. More control and no extensive heating up of to wood. You also have a cleaner root and no burned up wood. But it takes some time to do.

[Mad-Mike]

I had one of those Dremel Router thingies, that's how I learned to rout, though it did a ridiculously shabby job, thankfully these were cheap plywood guitars I was working on at the time.  I usually just routed the outside edge to the second or third lowest level of plywood, then used a chiszel to break the wood out of the guitar in one big clot.  It worked pretty well, but you had to take your time or the initial rout looked like shit.............

Now I use a REAL router only, it's much cleaner, and looks better, and plus, it's easier to free-hand route with, which is something I've gotten quite good at.  I routed my Kramer Focus 3000 for a Humbucker in the neck position, it only took me 2 minutes and looked professional (of course, I was working off an exisiting Single Coil slot).

[Marc]

I found for routing purposes that dynamite works best. 

[Stereordinary]

Now I use a REAL router only, it's much cleaner, and looks better, and plus, it's easier to free-hand route with, which is something I've gotten quite good at.

You free-hand with your router?  That's cool, I wish I was that good with mine.  I may do channels for electronics free-hand, but beyond that I feel like I would need to stick with a template and template router bits.  Do you use a 1/4" or 1/2" collet router?