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.
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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.
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.
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.
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
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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
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