Norbertocaster, part 4: control cavities and chisels
norbertocaster (build 1)
Started: July 15, 2025 • Ended: September 13, 2025
Control cavities
ImportantIf you’re here trying to build a guitar — don’t do this step yet. Read through the whole article first, because this part should actually be done later in the build.The next step after shaping the body was to make the cavities for the electronics, pickups, and so on. I started with forstner bits to drill out the initial holes, but then I had to remove the rest of the wood inside. And here came another problem — I didn’t have the right tools for that.
So, I had to order another essential tool: chisels (a 6 mm one, which later turned out to be perfect for the truss rod channel since it has the same width, and a 15 mm one).
If I can give you one piece of advice about tools: don’t buy the cheapest ones. You’ll quickly realize that cheap tools are actually expensive, because they break fast and don’t do the job as well as slightly better ones.
After my chisels finally arrived, I got to work cleaning out the cavities — and here’s the result!
At this point, the work on the body was done (we’ll get back to it later). I also forgot to mention some other handy tools I was using, like clamps, a half-round rasp, a ruler, and so on.
As the number of tools started to grow, I needed somewhere to keep them all. So I bought a simple wooden crate from IKEA, grabbed an unused piece of material, nailed it to the crate — and just like that, I had my half-hand-made toolbox!
