The Warrior

This is the second design for Psalmos, created in 2009.  Following will be the procedure I used to come up with this design.  Hopefully, you can glean some inspiration for your own designs?

First, I start with a template that I designed using AutoCAD 2006.

I traced the template on 1 1/2" thickness birch plywood and cut it out with a jigsaw as a bandsaw can be unpredictable at this thickness.

After some shaping with a router and a belt sander, I use another template to locate the humbucker pickups.

Since this body was created from plywood, the edges had to be shaped with a sander and then spot filler added around the perimeter.  This fills in all the pores left from the roughness of the plywood.  Afterward, the body gets a final sanding.

...and now, pickup cavities and neck pocket is routed and primer is added in three coats.  Before final painting, the body is wet sanded using 400 grit sandpaper.

Now we have final paint and graphics...the next step will be to add about 5 coats of laquer...stay tuned!