A Les Paul Supreme Style For My Son

[Duff Beer Man]

Freaking love it. I even like the sand through i think it gives it charicter.

[johnsilver]

After fretting the neck last Saturday, I carved it on Sunday. On the two guitars I made previously, I used a variety of techniques to carve the necks. I say it that way because some of the necks I worked on / carved never made it (on to guitars that is), so I've carved more necks than I've made guitars.

On previous necks, I used a spokeshave followed by a scraper followed by sanding. I enjoyed using the spokeshave. On my last guitar (SG), I used a microplane for the heavy removal, followed by a light scraping followed by sanding. That's what I'm doing on the LP. There is an old school part of me that feels I "should" use the spokeshave, but honestly, as much as I enjoyed it I didn't enjoy the sharpening / tuning / adjusting. Oh well, using a microplane still makes it hand carved.

This time, I bought two round microplanes of different sizes to carve the areas around the head and heel. Before, I used rasps/files. Here are the tools, basic process and results. Unlike a real LP, I made a volute.

Here are the microplanes

Starting the carve at the head

Moving to carving near the heel

Connecting the head / heel carves

Volute roughed in

Profile of the carved neck

Carved neck press fit in guitar - final heel shaping to be done after gluing in

Neck / body side view

From the back view, you can see the small spalted area in the maple. I placed the spalted area there next to the heel because I thought it would look interesting, but now that I have to burst it, it will largely be covered up.

Well, after this set of pics, you guys are pretty current with this project. I'll only be able to work a little next weekend but plan to do some sanding and repairing body/neck imperfections (around binding for example). If I get happy with that, I'll glue the neck to the body and finish shaping the heel.

Right now, I'm listening to SRV. Goes well with the single barrel bourbon.

[Lord-of-the-strings]

Man... you could work with those sand throughs. Really. if you just sanded more on the bass side one to make it more similar to the treble side one, it'd be neat.

[johnsilver]

I want to see it completed too. Its been around a long time and my son is starting to get a little old. I may have to ditch this project and start making small guitars for grandchildren if I don't hurry up.

You won't believe this. I posted the above two days ago. My son for whom the guitar is for called me last night to let me know that he and his wife are expecting their first child (my first grandchild).

The baby is due in March, so I have a firm deadline now.

OK. Time to get more serious about the finish. Due to stupid sandthroughs, I can't do the transparent amber finish he wanted, so I'm going to try a burst (never done one). I'm going to make up some mock-ups from leftover curly maple and use them to help decide and to develop some technique. Some of you have made suggestions (thanks). My favorites are below.

Gibson LP Honey Burst

Gibson LP Desert Burst

Gibson LP Transparent Black (I'll have to darken the edges)

Thoughts? Suggestions? Remember I have gold MOP inlays, gold frets, tuners, bridge and tailpiece (Tone Pros TOM), gold speed knobs, and I plan gold covers on the pickups with black pickup rings.

Speaking of pickups, my plan is to order Seymour Duncan Custom Custom for the bridge and Pearly Gates for the neck. My son plays a variety of music from classic rock, blues, modern rock to more alternative stuff. Thoughts?

Speaking of music styles, I guess I'll wait until my new grandchild is 18 before I show him/her the pictures of her father's last band. Their name was Thousand Watt Bitch. I hope it isn't a girl.

BTW, listening to Gregg Allman solo disk Searching for Simplicity. Great stuff.

[Campylobacter]

Go for the Honey Burst!

[Maiden69]

with the problem on the sand thru I wouldn't suggest any of those translucent burst, I would go with a black burst like carvin does. Or if you must do a gibson style burst it would be a little thicker than normal to cover the are completely, but the desert burst would look the best.

Other than that the project loks great.

Edited July 21, 2006 by Maiden69

[theitalianrob]

i kinda liek this color, idk what you like though.

[matttheguy]

I'd say go with the desert burst. It's probably your best bet to cover up those sand throughs effectively. The honey burst is alot lighter than it looks in that picture, at least the few I've seen.

And theitalianrob, it's a nice color, but doesn't address the problem at hand.

[Pr3Va1L]

I like the desert-burst too...

And btw, I wouldn't put a duncan Custom Custom in a lp-style guitar... Out of fear that it would be way too muddy and dark. Id much rather go with a JB, a Custom, a Custom 5 and such.

[theitalianrob]

yeah, sorry bout that matt, anyways, i think the desert burst is your best bet.

[oz tradie]

+1 Desert burst is great, especially because it also solves the refinishing dilemma.

Personally, I find that people tend to overlook the full potential of a well placed bumper sticker

[johnsilver]

I like the desert-burst too...

And btw, I wouldn't put a duncan Custom Custom in a lp-style guitar... Out of fear that it would be way too muddy and dark. Id much rather go with a JB, a Custom, a Custom 5 and such.

Thanks for the suggestions. I broke down and asked my son what he would like. He's thinking about it but is leaning to the desert burst.

Pr3Va1L, I'm glad you weighed in here. Your suggestion of a Custom in the bridge is consistent with another recommendation I had from Lews Guitars. Then I looked at the SD website and here is what it said about the Custom and Custom Custom.

Custom

"Recommended for bridge position. Often a Duncan Custom is paired with an SH-1 ‘59 in the neck for bigger P.A.F. tones in the bridge and vintage-correct P.A.F. tones in the neck. For balanced and warm instruments. Works especially well with rosewood fingerboards."

Custom Custom

"Recommended for bridge position. Often a Custom Custom is paired with a Pearly Gates for bluesy P.A.F. tones in the neck. For brighter toned instruments. Works especially well with maple and ebony fingerboards."

Since I want to use a Pearly Gates neck and have an ebony board, I was leaning to the Custom Custom. However, I don't want a muddy bottom end on the guitar. After your's and Lew's recommendations, I'll probably go back to a Custom.

[guitar2005]

I made the neck from 3 pieces of flatsawn mahogany laminated to form a blank. My local supplier doesn't have any quartersawn mahogany, so I turned the blank on its side, that is, the edges of the three pieces became the face of the blank. It made a blank about 3 1/2" square by about 36" long.

I squared up the blank using an inexpensive Stanley hand plane and ensured it was square using a small machinist's square. I marked out the top and side profiles on the blank using my poster board templates drawn up from the plan I have. I was able to mark out two full size necks facing opposite directions and on opposite faces of the blank. The size of the blank allowed me to have angled headstocks, so no scarf joint was necessary.

I use the same technique for making neck blanks. I find that it make for a more stable neck and you can alternate between woods. Last time around, I used Birdseye maple/Jatoba/Birdseye maple. Looks real neat - I just have the complete it now... projects have been on hold for a while now.

What technique did you use to get the neck straight for the fretboard to be glued on?

Did you hand plane and check with a straightedge?

[johnsilver]

What technique did you use to get the neck straight for the fretboard to be glued on?

Did you hand plane and check with a straightedge?

Exactly. I planed the neck blank flat on the face (both faces since I was making two necks from the blank). I checked it was flat with a precision straight edge and square to the sides with a square. After I achieved the proper alignment, then I marked out and cut the necks.

[johnsilver]

Here is an update. Not a lot of progress - busy at work and some travel.

I shaped the neck a little more. Its slightly asymetrical to the bass side - not much. Feels pretty comfortable, but what do I know?

I checked the neck / body alignment on the center line one last time using a small laser level. I saw that in some thread on this forum and it works great. Thanks to whomever. I also checked the neck angle one last time to ensure I had good height along the fretboard and with the bridge. Looks like I will have to raise the bridge a bit when it is strung up, but not much so I am ok.

I glued the neck and body together yesterday. Today, I smoothed the neck body join and shaped the heel a bit further. The alignment is good and the heel / body join feels ok, at least for a Paul.

Here are some pics. Not the greatest quality.

Gluing the neck and body. The joint was a good fit so I needed minimal pressure.

Intersection of lots of binding - needs some clean up

Other side of join

Neck / body join and heel

I have a lot of sanding to do now that the whole thing has come together. I also need to deal with some small imperfections here and there, such as small gaps near the binding. But, now I need to get real serious about the finish. I took some maple scraps, pretty big pieces actually, and sanded them smooth. I'm going to play around with the amber, brown, red mahogany Colortone until I find something I like. I'm also playing around with an idea to mask the sandthroughs on the top so I won't have to make the edge of the burst opaque. Don't know if it will work or not but thats what the scrap is for.

Listening to some Guitar Shorty now. Killer.

[Duff Beer Man]

Will you adopt me and build me one? haha

[johnsilver]

Well, some limited progress to report. Yesterday, I spent several hours seeking out and correcting small imperfections and then sanding the whole guitar through the grits up to 180. Still have several grits to go. I'm not sure if I'll stop at 320 or 400.

Anyway, for fun I put the tuners, bridge and tailpiece and a pre-slotted nut on and strung it up. I wanted to confirm alignment, check out approximate bridge and tailpiece height, etc. The string alignment was very good (thank goodness since I'm not sure what I would do now if it wasn't). The test nut was a little high but I could tell that my bridge would be able to be set pretty low so I wouldn't have to raise it too high on the studs. I will need to raise the tailpiece a bit so the strings will clear the back edge of the bridge. The guitar tuned fine and intonation was close without adjustment. Of course, I will still have the full set up including a bone nut to do after applying the finish. This was just a dry run.

Some pics:

Strung up for test fit.

Gold Grover tuners - still need to blacken the head plate

Number 3 son tuning it up for the first time

A little bling with the gold MOP. Check out the length of his alien fingers.

Well, I'm off to the workshop go test dye on scrap maple. Guess I'll have to shut off Lynyrd Skynyrd now.

[Slabbefusk]

How long are his fingers? My middle is between 4-5" and my index isn't far behind!

[WezV]

still need to blacken the head plate

WHY!!!! Looks great as it is. A coat of lacquer will darken it a bit anyway.

[chunkielad]

I say leave the headplate too.

that guitar is very nice - I love the workmanship and those sand throughs are one of lkife's happy mistakes I think - you could make them work to your advantage I'm sure - Maybe it'd be nice to sand through the rest of the guitar edge so it's a two tone front?

[johnsilver]

How long are his fingers? My middle is between 4-5" and my index isn't far behind!

Well, I don't know. In the pic, his hand is around the 5th fret and the fretboard is just under 2" wide at that point. From that you can get an idea of the length of his fingers. They must be similar to yours. Darn aliens.

OK, OK - I'll try a few things before blackening the head plate. I'll wet it with mineral spirits to get an idea of what it would look like with nitro on it, and then go from there.

Its a slightly lighter piece of ebony than the fretboard and there is a small grey streak. I wasn't going to spray it with black lacquer or anything like that. What I was going to use was a little of the fretboard dye sold by Stewmac, and let it dry completely before sealing and finishing. I still think I will use the dye.

This afternoon, I played around a little with dye (Colortone, TransTint) and made a color board from scrap maple to see which colors I may want to use in the burst. I liked the amber as a base color so I made a test piece with it by dying with amber (in water as I said so it also acted to raise the grain), sanding back the color and the raised grain in the process, then dying again with amber. I'll let it dry overnight or so and then spray a coat of vinyl sealer to see what it looks like with a little sealer on it. If I like it, I'll play around with burst colors. I really can't decide or don't like the colors so I ordered a Red Mahogany dye this afternoon and I'll see how it fits in. I'll need something dark near the edges to hide the sandthrough.

Oh well, that's probably enough for this weekend. Elvin Bishop is heating up and so is my grill.....

Colorboard - yellow, amber, golden brown, medium brown, medium brown with red, dark walnut, dark walnut with black

Amber test piece

[SoundAt11]

I agree, Amber on the flamed maple looks perfect. You might want to have a look at the Gibson Gary Moore signature Les Paul. It's a transparent lemon/amber and looks very similar (and awesome).

Great job so far, love the flame maple (and the spalt, gives it character) and the gold fretwire and supreme inlays (nice aged look) look fantastic.

[johnsilver]

Soundat11, thanks. I looked at the Gary Moore lemon burst - very nice color. I think I will make a blending board with straight lemon on one end and straight amber on the other with different blends of the two in between, then pick which I like best for the base color on the body. I'm putting a coat of sealer on the amber test piece now to see how it looks, but I may want to go a bit lighter and the lemon should do that. Thanks for the tip!!

[johnsilver]

I put two quick coats of vinyl sealer on the maple previously dyed with amber so I could see what it looks like. The maple is a piece of the same board I have on the front and back of the LP so the base wood color should be pretty consistent.

I mixed some Colortone Honey Amber dye in water (1/4 oz dye to 3 oz water as a test concentration). The maple was already sanded to 220 grit. I wiped on the dye and let it dry. The water raised the grain a bit. I sanded it back until most of the color was removed off the top and only remained in the grain. I then wiped on the dye again and let it dry. The next day, I applied two coats of vinyl sealer an hour apart. I used a Preval sprayer for the sealer, so it (or I) didn't get a very good application but it served to seal the dye, show me the color and show me whether the grain was enhanced.

So far, I really like the color. This is basically what I was aiming for as a complete finish before I sanded through the maple. So, if I hadn't sanded through, I'd be motoring now instead of trying to figure out a complementary burst.

Test piece with dye and sealer sitting outside in the sun

Test piece next to the guitar - sitting inside with flash

Next steps are to test some burst colors as shader coats over the sealer and see what I like. I'll also be practicing burst spraying techniques since I haven't done that before. I ordered the small touch up spray gun from Stewmac (darn them). It should arrive on Thursday. So, over the weekend if all goes right, I'll test some colors and practice technique. I have the Stewmac bursting video (double darn them - good thing my youngest just graduated from college) so I'll be watching that.

So far, the motto of this guitar is "if you want to play, you have to pay".

[chunkielad]

I'm sure it'll all turn out fine in the end fella. Just take your time on practising the burst and you'll have a monster finish.

The one thing I would keep in mind here is that as much as the cost escalates each time you get something, tools and techniques are there for more than this one guitar. Plus, you tell me where you can get a guitar of this spec for the money you've spent.

Edited August 15, 2006 by chunkielad