Pink Korina LP Build

davros · March 28

It's been a while since I finished my last build, a white LP custom.

I've started planning the next build. It will be a slow burner as I have a lot of home projects that need doing over the summer.

The plan is a broadly:
- a 54 Les Paul, but...
- White limba / korina body and neck
- Fully chambered with the top carved internally
- Firebird pickups in mini humbucker rings (P90 route)
- Wraptail or tunomatic with Bigsby
- Yellowed shell pink top, natural back

A lot of the build will be similar to my other builds so I won't go crazy with details but will post progress pics.

Inspo for this were the Bartlett explorer and a pink LP I played at the weekend at the Gibson Garage in London. The LP was 9 grand and the relicing was not great.

davros · April 26

Timber has arrived from Guitars and Woods. White limba body blank and neck blank, plain maple top and rosewood slotted fingerboard.

The body blank is a reasonable weight, but the neck black is suuuper light. It's only a 40mm depth blank, so I had them cut a scarf joint to get a 17 degree back angle.

I did wonder whether the neck was a different species. The grain looks a bit different with wide rings on the neck, but from the side it's quite similar. I was just quite shocked by the weight, and it sounds like a xylophone when knocked. I haven't seen any other limba to know for sure - any timber experts that would know?

Pictures of top and side of the neck vs body below, neck on the right.

guitargeek62 · April 26

Yep, that’s still limba on the neck - the wider-grain pieces crop up fairly regularly depending on the cut etc.

Teyeplayer · April 27

And following. Having been lucky enough to spend a couple of minutes with one of your other builds when I picked up the ac30, this looks to be a belter.

davros · May 5

Got started yesterday routing the body outline and hogging out the chambers. My new famag fostner bit is a million times better than the screwfix set I was using before.

Then I managed to stick a chisel through my right hand thumb and forefinger, so after getting those stitched back together my bank holiday weekend of building is ruined! Slow progress expected for a few weeks.

guitargeek62 · May 6

Owch, I feel for you - I did something similar with a slipped chisel into the side of my left-hand (how?!?!) once and out through my palm. I’ve still got some nerve damage on that side of the hand and two fingers, but hey ho!

I’ll check out those forstner bits too, as I need a new set

davros · May 6

They're not cheap, so I just got one, the right size for a LP jack socket, but big enough to hog out cavities too.

davros · May 12

Had a productive weekend, got the body hollowed out, top flattened and jointed and glued on. Neck is ready to carve after scarfing, adding ears and routing for truss rod.

The neck is VERY light, 300 grams before carving, without truss rod or fretboard. I'm not sure whether this means it will be weak or bendy, or I should be happy. I'm wondering if I should add some carbon fibre rods or something. Experts please chime in!

Annoyingly after thinning the headstock, a brown mark has appeared. I think I'll either leave it, put an inlay over it or maybe fill it and do a pink stinger to match the front of the body.

After a delivery from Manchester Guitar Tech, I've sone a tester for the shell pink. One without any topcoat, and then 1, 2 and 3 coats of light amber. I'm leaning toward one coat, maybe 2.

WezV · May 12

If it's quartersawn you should be fine without CF rods, just let the truss rod do it's thing.

If in doubt though, use them. I laminated my last limba neck as I wasn't sure about it

I think I'd stinger that headstock

WezV · May 13

On the stinger, I'm not sure I would do it matching pink.

The usual black should work really well as the overall look will be similar to a black stinger on TV yellow. It won't look out of place

davros · May 13

Thanks Wez. There's still some thickness to take off the back, it's at 18mm at the moment, so there's a chance it's less obvious when the faceplate is added and it's slimmed down for klusons.

davros · May 25

I thought I was making great progress this weekend until...my binding wouldn't stick!

I'm using UHU Hart, which I've used loads of times before without issue. But, this time, while scraping the binding it peeled off.

I don't know whether it has gone off, this tube is probably 2 years old so maybe beyond its shelf life. Or, is the rosewood excessively oily or something? The dried glue is all yellow where it contacted the rosewood - it normally dries clear.

Any ideas?

Suggestions of other glues would be welcome too!

davros · May 25

I've re-routed the binding channel to clean it up, and ordered some more glue - will test it on an offcut first!

WezV · May 26

Is it a different type of binding to whatever you used before?

My back up is always super glue. It can be messier but will work on every wopd or plastic. You have to scrape the back and dampen the wood first with most superglue, or tape it all in place and use water thin glue between the gaps with the ultra thin stuff.

It might also be worth removing the wood oils with thinners or naptha a few minutes before you start, whovuevwr glue you are using

davros · May 26

Thanks Wez. Same ABS binding Ive used before only this was from rothko and frost instead of direct from china.

I used thin super glue and wicked it in with my LP custom build and that worked well, so if the new tube of Hart does the same I'll use that.

I did wipe the back of the fretboard with acetone before gluing it to the neck, but didn't before the binding so will do that too next time.

Thanks!!

davros · June 9

Not posted in a while but lots of progress made.

A new batch of the glue for the binding and it worked perfectly. The neck and headstock are now inlayed, radiused and fretted, and the carve facets done. The body is carved, bound and the neck pocket routed.

For the body binding I tried the steam from a boiling kettle to bend round the horn, rather than a heat gun. It worked really well and avoids overheating and melting it. Only downside is you have to heat it while it's off the guitar.

On testing with the bridge and bigsby, I found the bridge to be too high and the top E string would have touched the back of the bridge. So, I sanded the neck heel into a bit of a wedge, taking less than 1mm off the body end, and adjusted the top so it still aligned with the bottom of the neck binding. It was about 4.5°, now down to 4° and much better at the bridge.

The neck wood is quite soft, so I'll need to be careful with the carve, it disappears quite quickly under a rasp!

davros · June 9

A quick mockup, need to get plastics ordered now and decide on pickups.

davros · June 14

I've ordered a set of Mojo 52-54 P90s, quite a long lead time on them, so won't be able to rout the pickups for a while. I want to ensure they're a good fit, and the radius is right.

I'm mostly done carving the neck - this stuff carves suuuuuper easy, too easy! Having to take it very slow so I don't take off too much. Hopefully will get the neck glued in this weekend.

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories

In this Discussion

Become a Subscriber!

Pink Korina LP Build

Comments