Ed,

If you have a plunge router, you can plunge into the middle of the waste
area with the template bit, and route out most of the material in
ever-deepening cuts, without approaching the template. Once you have most
of the material removed to full depth, and the bearing is low enough to
properly contact the template, you can then remove the outer portions of the
waste material all the way to the template.

Good luck. I'd like to see the pics, when you get them.

Kevin
"Ed B." wrote in message
...
Well, since I plan on installing these battery boxes in a number of
guitars,
I decided to try two different methods and see which works best. Using
some
scrap wood, I first tried using a bit with a bearing on the shank, I
believe
this is what people have been referring to as pattern bits. Stewart Mac
had
the bits with the bearings and some plastic tubing that you put on the
shank
above the bearing to keep it from riding up. The double sided tape worked
well for fastening the template, but my main problem here is that the
bearing is higher than the top of the template when I make the first few
cuts, so I put shims under the template and that worked well, except that
I
had to switch shims a second time to shorter ones to keep the bearing on
the
template. The results looked good, but this was just on scrap, I haven't
tried it on the guitar yet.

Then I went to Lowes and bought a Vermont American router base plate and
bushing set for $15.00. It took me a while to find it because the guy in
their tool department had never heard of router guide bushings. This set
was supposed to be universal and fit most routers. Well, I had nothing
but
trouble getting it to fit on my Ryobi Plunge Router. First the bushing
that
fit my router bit was really long so I had to cut it down with a Dremel
tool. Then the baseplate and bushing wouldn't fit on the bottom of my
router properly. I wound up having to enlarge some holes in the baseplate,
and I never was able to get the router bit to fit right in the middle of
the
bushing. It would always rub against it or cut into it when I tried to
plunge the router down. I probably spent a couple hours trying to get
things to line up, but I think the bottom line is, that base plate isn't
designed to fit my brand of router.

I will be cutting a battery box in the first guitar tonight using the
first
method with the shims. I also got a Forstner bit at Home Depot so I can
cut
out most of the material first with that. I'm also going to try to cut a
lip
around the hole so that the battery box fits in flush when it's all done.
I'll take some digital photos and can post them if anyone wants to see
what
it turns out looking like.

Thanks,
Ed B.


"Kevin Singleton" wrote in message
...
Let's just hope he posts pictures and tells us how he did it, eh?

Kevin
"Doug Miller" wrote in message
om...

I apologize -- I hadn't thought it all the way through. I cancelled my
post,
but obviously not soon enough. You are right, of course.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)

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