Every curve in your finished guitar traces back to one thing you make first: the template. Get that shape wrong and a crooked outline gets copied into every body you rout from it.
The work itself isn’t hard once you have the right materials and a clear plan. What it does demand is patience and accuracy at each step.
We’ll walk the whole process from a full-scale drawing to a sturdy master you can reuse for years. This guide is part of our larger how to build a guitar series.
You’ll end up with a template that’s smooth, true, and tough enough to last. It all starts with the body profile blueprint.
Start with the Body Profile Blueprint
Before you start building a body template, make sure you have the guitar’s printable blueprint or full-scale drawings handy. Without a blueprint, you could end up making a template that just won’t work.
Even worse would be not realizing the template is flawed and making a full-fledged guitar using that incorrect template as its base. Therefore, thoroughly check all the drawings and measurements to ensure everything is right.
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Guitar Building Tools and Materials
To build high-quality guitar templates for a body blank, you’d require some materials and a couple of handy tools. To make the actual body profile template or routing template, you’d need:
- 1/8” thick hardboard piece of board
- 1/2” or 3/4” piece of MDF (medium-density fiberboard)
For tools, you’d need:
- Ruler
- Pencil
- Marker
- Drum sander or oscillating spindle (OS) sander
- Coping saw or a jigsaw
- Bandsaw or a scroll
- Palm sander
- Table router (with a table, preferably)
Once you’ve got the necessary guitar building templates tools and materials in place, start with replicating the guitar body’s shape on the hardboard. You can easily get it done by cutting out the shape using the blueprints and then tracing it onto the board using your pencil.
Center it on the lines already drawn using your ruler. As the hardboard would be a relatively dark piece of material, it could be difficult to see and follow the pencil drawings on it.
Therefore, draw over the lines using the tipped marker so that the black lines can be easily seen.
Now, roughly cut the shape out using your choice of saw device. Try to keep the cuts in line with the markings as much as possible without cutting into it or overlapping it.
Leave some minor gap between the cuts and the markings so that you could always remove material that you couldn’t cut during your first try. If you cut into the line, you’d never be able to get or add the material back.
Sanding The Cuts
Once the cutting is done, you must now be left with the rough guitar body shape. Needless to say, there’s still some more work to do.
The next step is perfecting the shape using sanders.
Begin the sanding process using the chucked drum sander or the OS sander for creating a perfectly flowing, continuous curve on the template’s concave sections. Generally, it’s recommended you keep the template progressing along the curve and not sanding it seated in a particular place since that could make things less interesting.
The only time sanding an area and not moving it’d work great is when there’s a big lump that needs to be brought down to the curve’s level. This constant motion during sanding would help with perfecting the curve and ensuring it’s continuous and smooth.
The ideal way to ascertain this is by holding up the template and using it to cover a light source or the sun, so the light coming in wraps around the body template and provides you a distinctively contrasted profile. This should let you see the condition in which the template’s edges are than just normally looking at them.
Remember, even the minutest imperfections on the 1/8” template would look large and conspicuous when the guitar body’s thickness made using the template would compound it.
Once the template’s concave sections are done, you must now turn your attention toward the convex portions. For this, you’d need the palm sander since its flat bottom surface would help sand off all the high spots.
However, since the exterior is convex and the sections are flat, it won’t further sand lower. In other words, you’ll have a very uniform looking output.
Sand the convex parts until they flow seamlessly and you’re quite content with them.
Now, take the 1/8” template hardboard and trace it onto the 3/4” MDF piece with a centerline. Saw out the sketch again roughly.
This time you could afford to be not very accurate. Then, with the help of some nails and double-sided tape, secure the 1/8” board template onto the 3/4” MDF rough cut.
The next step is using the router table and bearer guided bit to emulate the 1/8” template’s exact shape onto the 3/4” one. Kindly note, this could take multiple passes since 3/4” is a good amount of material, despite MDF’s ability to cut like butter using the router.
Some pickup routing templates set help as well.
If you’re wondering what was the need to create a 1/8” material template if it was going to be used for creating the 3/4” one, then it’s because 1/8” thick piece of material is easier to manually shape and using some simple tools. Also, as the material is quite thin, even if the edge is sanded at an angle, or you make some other error, the thicker router bearing would only follow the high parts.
In other words, those mistakes or angled sides will be negated.
On the other hand, if the same errors were made on a manually done 3/4” template, errors over its thickness would’ve a significant impact compared to the 1/8” material.
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Some common template shapes:
- Strandberg
- Stratocaster
- Fender Jaguar
- Firebird
- Telecaster
- Ibanez Iceman
- Ibanez RG
- Ernie Ball
- Flying V
- Warlock
- PRS Guitar (Paul Reed Smith)
- BC Rich Mockingbird
- Danelectro
- Gibson Les Paul
- Gibson SG
- Bass guitar
Final Stage
Follow the aforementioned steps to create the headstock shape template. The final template will be for the fretboard and neck profile shapes.
The good thing is that the template built for the neck can also be used for the fretboard.
To build the template, just ascertain the neck’s width at the nut region and other points further down the guitar’s neck - such as the 24th or 12th fret for convenience. Then grab a perfectly straight wood piece and look here for the best wood for guitar bodies.
Usually, the MDF’s edges are straight right at the time of purchase. Therefore, cut off a couple of strips.
Use double-sided tape to tape this piece along the taper’s edge between the point you select further down the guitar’s neck and the nut.
Once the ideal taper for the fretboard and neck has been achieved, cut off the additional wood or the place where the nut would be. You may use this entire template for routing the whole neck with the guitar headstock template.
Kindly note, the straight bearing bit/wood method could be used for multiple things such as for routing the ideal control cavity or even a neck pocket.
Once the templates are created, you’ll need to protect them using a thin coating of polyurethane spray guitar paint. Spray along the template’s edges to harden and safeguard them.
This would ensure the templates come good for long.
Frequently Asked Questions
What materials do I need to make a guitar body template?
You need a piece of 1/8” hardboard for the working template and a piece of 1/2” or 3/4” MDF for the final master template. On the tool side, plan for a ruler, pencil, and marker for layout, a coping saw or jigsaw plus a bandsaw for rough cuts, and a drum or oscillating spindle sander and a palm sander for shaping.
A router table with a bearing-guided bit finishes the MDF master.
Can I make a guitar body template without a router?
You can make the thin 1/8” hardboard template entirely by hand using saws and sanders, since it’s easy to shape. The router table is what lets you copy that shape cleanly onto the thicker 3/4” MDF master, so without one you’d be limited to a single thin template.
For a durable master you’ll reuse many times, a router really is the right tool.
Why make a 1/8” template instead of going straight to MDF?
Thin 1/8” stock is much easier to shape and sand accurately with simple tools. Because it’s so thin, small errors like a slightly angled edge get ignored by the thicker router bearing when you copy the shape, so those mistakes never transfer to the master.
On a 3/4” template, the same errors run through the full thickness and would show up in every body you cut.
How do I make sure the template edges are smooth?
Keep the sander moving continuously along the curve rather than parking it in one spot, which prevents flat spots and lumps. Hold the finished template up against a light source so the light wraps around the edge and reveals any imperfections in sharp contrast.
Even tiny flaws on the 1/8” template get magnified across the full thickness of the guitar body, so it pays to perfect them now.
Final Thoughts
A great guitar body starts with an accurate template, so it’s worth taking your time at this stage. Begin from a trustworthy full-scale blueprint, trace the shape onto 1/8” hardboard, and cut and sand it until the concave and convex edges are perfectly smooth.
From there, copy that thin template onto a 3/4” MDF master with a router and a bearing-guided bit, then seal the edges with a light coat of polyurethane so the master holds up to repeated use. Get the template right and every body, neck, and headstock you build from it’ll come out clean and consistent.
