Full fat Les Paul build

PeteC

Love that.  Ive been meaning to do something similar since seeing that approach in one of the Fletcher guitars youtube videos.    Also for binding i saw someone use a small round junction box as the guide bush - seems to work very well. 

Looking forward to your next stage 

davros

Lots of progress but no progress pictures, stupidly didn't take any!

Timber merchant failed me for a maple top, they could only get it 150mm wide. Eventually got a lovely plain top from the great people at guitar and bass build/Haynes guitars. More expensive but fast delivery and planed all round.

Jointed the top, glued it, cut to shape, glued to the body, used the router table to trim it flush. Tiny bit of tearout but that will be gone when cutting the binding channel.

Then onto the carve. Used the overhead jig to cut the contours with the MDF templates made right at the beginning. Worked really well! Then cut the neck and pickup angles with a heath robinson jig. All went fine except I took the neck plane a fraction too deep.

Then went at it with a random orbital sander - 50 grit then 120 then 180 grit, and in about 30 mins a carved top has emerged. I was a little dubious about how well the templates would work, but they make it really simple.

I want to refine the carve a little, especially the recurve, but I want to do that with a curved scraper...hopefully Santa is bringing me one.

davros

Strange, pics didn't add. Hopefully an edit has fixed it

PeteC

Looking great - fast progress.  The overhead jig works well ! 

davros

Bit of an update, made progress with the neck over the hols so far.

Just a couple of pics showing some approaches I've used in case they're useful to anyone.

Thicknessing the fretboard with a handheld router. 2 9mm MDF strips and the fretboard taped down to a flat surface. Brought it down to 6mm. I didnt taper it, so it will be around 0.5mm deeper at the edge of the fretboard at the nut than the heel.


Carving the neck with a saw rasp and iwasaki rounded file while clamped to a 2x4 to get access all round.


Making this with a full width tenon as I'm planning to carve it smooth if i can work out the geometry.

Slightly long tenon, which will be mostly routed away with the neck pickup cavity.

Messy on the treble side of the joint. I left this oversize when making the body so I can spindle sand it down for a smooth transition into the neck. Looks messy at the moment, but should clean up nicely. Although it might look like it, I'm not doing a junior style hump here!

Next up fretting, sanding down the hump and routing for body binding.

PeteC

Looking really good.  How did you go about cutting the heel/neck angle ?   Like the idea of the oversize treble side that can be blended in 

davros

2nd balls up of the build, can you spot the error?



Yep, started routing the p90 cavity at the end of the neck pocket, not the end of the neck. Realised after the first pass so not full depth. I knew there was a reason why I was planning to route this after gluing the neck in.

Well, it's made the decision for me on stain vs solid colour for the top!

Now to cut a filler piece from maple offcuts. Going to be impossible to get this perfect and needs to be totally smooth for painting. I see online people using bondo car body filler, anyone have better ideas?

PhilKing

Short of suggesting a conversion to a humbucker, I have no better idea than yours, other than a possibly more radical one of replacing the fingerboard with a longer one, so you reach the end of the neck and have 24 (or possibly 23), frets.

davros

Thanks Phil, I'm after the traditional look here, and I have a nice Oil City P90 ready to go in, so I'm afraid I may have to stick with filling it. 

davros

This stuff looks like it might do the job well. 2 part, easy sand.

https://www.toolstation.com/big-boy-lightweight-body-filler/p96113?store=KA&utm_source=googleshopping&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=googleshoppingfeed&gclid=Cj0KCQiAoab_BRCxARIsANMx4S6lgz0KO2Ryp-uIaXv8nmOUj3_XQsMVGo28B6NcoCt1s-SaINJ6g-8aAk-kEALw_wcB

poopot

davros said:

This stuff looks like it might do the job well. 2 part, easy sand.

https://www.toolstation.com/big-boy-lightweight-body-filler/p96113?store=KA&utm_source=googleshopping&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=googleshoppingfeed&gclid=Cj0KCQiAoab_BRCxARIsANMx4S6lgz0KO2Ryp-uIaXv8nmOUj3_XQsMVGo28B6NcoCt1s-SaINJ6g-8aAk-kEALw_wcB

Noooooooooo.

let in a piece of maple!!!!!

Danielsguitars

You could extend the p90 route to the next one and put a new maple filler in then it's not so noticeable and you could get away with a burst type finish rather than solid or go goldtop after filling it in

WezV

Danielsguitars said:

You could extend the p90 route to the next one and put a new maple filler in then it's not so noticeable and you could get away with a burst type finish rather than solid or go goldtop after filling it in

What he said.

A join going across the grain will always be harder to hide than one going with it

davros

poopot said:

davros said:

This stuff looks like it might do the job well. 2 part, easy sand.

https://www.toolstation.com/big-boy-lightweight-body-filler/p96113?store=KA&utm_source=googleshopping&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=googleshoppingfeed&gclid=Cj0KCQiAoab_BRCxARIsANMx4S6lgz0KO2Ryp-uIaXv8nmOUj3_XQsMVGo28B6NcoCt1s-SaINJ6g-8aAk-kEALw_wcB

Noooooooooo.

let in a piece of maple!!!!!

Don't worry, I wasn't thinking of filling the whole cavity, just the inevitable tiny gaps around the maple filler piece.

I've just shaped and glued in some maple. I'll let it dry and carve it down and see how bad the join is. Actually it's pretty tight so may be able to get away with a bit of glue and maple dust.

Danielsguitars said:

You could extend the p90 route to the next one and put a new maple filler in then it's not so noticeable and you could get away with a burst type finish rather than solid or go goldtop after filling it in

I did think of that, but I don't have any offcuts quite large enough and I was leaning towards a solid top anyway. Just saves me time agonising!

Danielsguitars

davros said:

poopot said:

davros said:

This stuff looks like it might do the job well. 2 part, easy sand.

https://www.toolstation.com/big-boy-lightweight-body-filler/p96113?store=KA&utm_source=googleshopping&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=googleshoppingfeed&gclid=Cj0KCQiAoab_BRCxARIsANMx4S6lgz0KO2Ryp-uIaXv8nmOUj3_XQsMVGo28B6NcoCt1s-SaINJ6g-8aAk-kEALw_wcB

Noooooooooo.

let in a piece of maple!!!!!

Don't worry, I wasn't thinking of filling the whole cavity, just the inevitable tiny gaps around the maple filler piece.

I've just shaped and glued in some maple. I'll let it dry and carve it down and see how bad the join is. Actually it's pretty tight so may be able to get away with a bit of glue and maple dust.

Danielsguitars said:

You could extend the p90 route to the next one and put a new maple filler in then it's not so noticeable and you could get away with a burst type finish rather than solid or go goldtop after filling it in

I did think of that, but I don't have any offcuts quite large enough and I was leaning towards a solid top anyway. Just saves me time agonising!

Go for a sparkle finish top, it'll be lovely

davros

I was originally planning getting rexter to do a sparkle top, but didn't think it was worth the cost after the fuck up on the back!

It's filled, just some small gaps in the corners to fill and re-rout in the right place!!

SteveRobinson

Another good save!

I think that a sparkle top would be the ideal way to avoid any sinkage around the patch repair.

PeteC

Good save - nice comeback ! 

davros

Neck carve done, top carve nearly there (scribbles indicate a tiny bit of refinement needed). Now awaiting a fret saw to deepen the slots a touch before fretting, and binding to arrive from Eurospruce (anyone ever used them???). One those are done I can glue the neck and turn my attention to the neck joint carve.

Thicknessed the headstock using my spindle sander with a vertical fence (offcut of mahogany). To make it taper from 16mm to 15mm I taped a 1mm drill bit to the end on the side running against the fence, seemed to work pretty well!!

It's definitely starting to look more like a guitar and I'm learning a lot about how to cover up mishaps!

davros

SteveRobinson said:

Another good save!

I think that a sparkle top would be the ideal way to avoid any sinkage around the patch repair.

I'd bloody love a sparkle top on this, a gorgeous turquoise blue like the Jazzmaster on Rexter's Facebook feed, but it's not something I can do myself and I just can't justify the considerable cost to sub it out.

https://m.facebook.com/rexterguitars/photos/a.502141970250294/827910131006808/?type=3&source=54

The wife says I have too many blue guitars, so it's looking like Dakota Red nitro I think.