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i have asked for both to have the corner mounting holes holes drilled the same way I did it above( this gives the ability to drop into any p-90 LP)
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I've also been tempted by the thorn, i hope Marc gets round to making a staple
(formerly customkits)
All good to continue
the tops glued together and roughly cut out. - wet with spirits here
the sycamore always shows more medullary rays than maple and its even more pronounced here as the top is perfectly quartersawn and quite tightly grained - definitely not the Gibson recipe.
a bit of colour variation which won't be a problem for this build. if it was getting a primary colour stain it would need some wood bleach first.
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That is coming in at 4lb 1 1/2 oz. I could squeeze a couple of extra holes in there, but u think that will do - I won;t bother with full chambers
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Things start to change with full chambers, and it's a much more effective way of reducing weight.
i have nothing against either and I think variation in mahogany can make just as much difference as most of the simpler weight relief techniques.
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then they get flipped over to give us our 3-piece blank
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I have LPs with both... A Classic which has that holy weight relief and a chambered Standard... There is a sound difference but like with most things when it comes to this its fairly small but is noticeable.. The chambered one is just that much brighter but nothing that cant be fixed with an EQ tweak.. (IMO of course). But one is 11lbs and the other 9.. So quite a difference there
All looking really good by the way man.. I like the funky hole you have for the selector switch
http://www.rabswoodguitars.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/RabsWoodGuitars/
My Youtube page
This one will be appropriately 50's
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That's harsh on wez, he posts cool photos and you insult him.
first i had glued it to the body at 18mm but it actually needs to be just under 16 so i skimmed a couple of mm off the top with my router thicknesser. Its important to note that this could ruin a perfect bookmatch on flat sawn figured maple... usually its best to remove wood from underneath the show face.... not an issue here
I then routed the binding channel, except in the cutaway - I find its easiest to do this when the body is flat on top. I will do inside the cutaway with a different tool later on.
I carve using the templates and method shown here
http://mountainwhimsy.com/2012/03/les-paul-top-carve/
it works really well for me. And because i already had the templates made from the last LP build I managed to do a full carve and the jobs above in about 2 1/2 hours.... including lots of thorough checking of angles as i went along
Stage 1 - a contour map is routed into the top
Stage 2 - out comes the router thicknesser again and i route the neck and pickup planes
Stage 3 - sand. The important bit here is good paper. I started with a 60g belt sander belt chopped open and used with the random orbit sander. I then moved up to 120 g once all the ridges had gone
Which gives us this
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I managed to route the correct angles, but things can drift slightly during the sanding process... If you are doing a proper les paul neck join its worth leaving the neck area alone at this stage
anyway - here i am checking the final angles
The reference surface is tilted 1.4 degrees up towards the neck
without moving the body, the neck shows -2.7 degrees the opposite way. so 4.1 degrees neck plane.
The pickup plane read at -0.2 degrees. That gives us 1.6 degrees pickup plane
and finally, a heck of the bridge area - which matches the reference surface
That will do nicely!
just a note on using a smart phone. They are great but its important not to trust the measurement until you have shown its repeatable. Also, not all phones are perfectly flat on the back so its important you keep it in the same position on the different surfaces. Its a measure thrice, cut once situation
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I probably won;t be using the tailpiece although i do quite like the look. Its actually okay but has 2 issues for this build. Firstly its chrome...bleargh. Secondly, i don't like the way it holds the strings. It just has slots in the back with no way to actually hold the ball end other than string pressure. The original version its based on has a slight lip to hold the ball end -
I am sure some of you will be happy with that decision
anyway, i will probably pick up a more common raised diamond tailpiece in nickel or potentially swap it with the tailpiece on my old and much modded archtop - its already nicely worn
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