Got the bulk of the guard done today. Made a template using most of the outline of the MOTORIK 1 guard: shortened the control area and the area just over the trem, moved the upper control are forward a bit to cover the cavity fully, then cobbled together the pickup and switch/roller routing using the old template and a jag one:
When I put it on the body to do the truss slot I found I needed to lengthen the body's pickup cavities a little for some reason. No bother. I shuffled the template around a bit to make sure the cavities were about 1mm wider than the guard's holes all round.
I'm going for a black anodized guard -
just managed to squeeze it out of the offcut from the JM guards I'm making for forum folks:
Cut very roughly with a special aluminium bit on my jigsaw. I don't like doing this - there's always a chance of bending the guard. The routing puts a lot less stress on it:
Outlines routed smooth. There are slight chatter marks along the edge, about the same as on Allparts gold guards, but I'll smooth that off before it's finished.
And this is my setup for cutting the switch and roller holes, and the reason for the oversized routing on the template: I use a 10mm guide bush and a 1.25mm carbide bit. It works a treat on plastic guards, not so easy on aluminium. It sort of melts its way through, but gets there in the end. Leaves nice rectangular holes with only a tiny radius in the corners.
I've drilled and countersunk all the holes now - just some tidying up to do around the edges, and some corners to square. Once I have the other three JM guards finished they'll all be off to the anodizer to get coated. Can't wait to see how it turns out.
I have the metallic flake for the lacquer now, and it looks the business, very fine - on with that real soon. I also have everything I need for the neck, so no excuses there, either...
That first guard was routed for WRHPs I think; I made him another to fit the JM pickup.
