OK, so here's a few more pictures taken after a quick application of stripper and a quick sanding to see what's up under the huge layer of brush paint and laquer.
First off, here's the guitar from the front.
Nice wood underneath it all still, but getting that foil out was a pain. There was about 3 or 4 layers of it, and all of it held in with glue. In a just world, people who do this would be dragged from their homes by an angry mob and beaten. Not shown, the several layers of skin I removed whilst using the stripper. Real men ignore the instructions and never wear gloves.
So here's the rear of the control cavity. Why route when you can just drill repeatedly and rip out parts of the body ?
And here's the front route. I'm not sure if this route sizing is standard, so I'll need a little help here. I suspect not. However, I'm pretty sure that the little pieces of wood glued and screwed in there to address some issue aren't.
The more observant of you will notice in the first picture that where the tailpiece would be, there are three holes, two of which the previous master luthier used a drill for. By the time he came to the third, he appeared to have broken his drill or just decided he'd use an icepick instead. Whatever he wanted to fix there after this fine piece of work needed some good wood screws to hold it in there, and nothing says commitment to fasteners like using screws that are too long and poke out the back of the guitar. I sincerely hope that they gave him gangrene of his gonads.
Anyway, the next post will shoe the neck/body joint from the back.
