New P-90, wood pickguard

[Matt Madden]

Hi all. I've started the process of putting a P-90 in the bridge position of the tele-deluxe style guitar I built. It has a okoume plywood pickguard and has a strat style bridge (not a tele bridge). It is similar in appearance to the 70s Tele Deluxes with the two humbuckers, except I built mine with just a single coil in the neck position. Now I am going to add a GFS P-90 in the bridge position.

So...I will have to route the pickguard to fit a P-90. I am in the process of making an MDF template to do the routing. Looking to avoid chipping etc. in the pickguard, should I route from the top or bottom? I'm thinking top. Should I remove the copper foil shielding first or will to router bit just cut through that?

The pickguard is finished with min-wax polyurethane, btw.

Thanks.

[Greg Robinson]

Hi Matt,

With regard to cutting your pickup hole from the top or bottom with a router, it depends on what sort of router bit you will be using.
If using a standard straight no-shear bit, then it doesn't make a difference, although you may want to cut close to the line, and then clean up with a file.
If you have a down-cut bit, then cutting from the top will leave a clean edge on the top, and vise-versa for an up-cut bit.

You might also want to score the lines with an exacto blade or similar to avoid chip outs.

I wouldn't worry about the copper foil, any router and bit shouldn't have any problems, although you may want to score it to prevent tearing.