Jump to content

A Pair Of Gibby Tribute Builds.


Recommended Posts

With this simple setup and a really shallow pattern router bit (1/8") I routed the tenon flat with the top plate.

IMG_165.jpg

IMG_166.jpg

And this is where I had to stop for now.

IMG_164.jpg

Next weekend, when I return from business trip part two, I will start with the binding of the body. After that it will be neck detailed fitting, pickups cavity routing, and bridge posts installation (like with the Les Paul, for adequate intonation).

Thanks for reading.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for reading.

As if we still have a choice in that matter. This is like a good book, you can't wait to see what happens next and there's no way you're going to put it down before the end.

SR

Thanks Scott, you're too kind.

We were debating finishes with my wife before I left yesterday. She's done the staining and pore filling for all my builds so far.

For the 355 is more or less easy, it's going to be cherry. The early originals were stained cherry directly on the wood, we will have to make a few tests on the plate offcuts to see if we can get the desired color just like that or if we will need a candy red on top of the stained maple. I think that just stain will potentially look more "vintage", and candy probably more modern...

The Les Paul is a bit more open to experimentation. I want a dark burst similar to one famous 59 burst, the Brock/DaPra, The color has got to be known as brockburst in the burst circles... :D

I am pretty confident that my wife can achieve that burst pattern by staining, this leaves the mahogany back and neck to be pore filled with dark cherry filler and clear coated. This should solve the issue in a reasonably vintage respectful way.

I will be switching from rattlecans to proper nitro spraying for these two builds, and I would very much prefer to keep it simple this time around.

The P90 LP is a bit of a pathfinder, I will quite possibly build me a proper 59 replica, and for that one I will attempt the more traditional bursting methods. In the meantime I'm already enjoying that guitar (unfinished), it really does play and sound great !

I should also start procuring a couple of critical pieces I still need: the B7 Bigsby and the ABR-1 bridge (for this I will likely use the German Faber with the metric posts).

BTW, does anybody know of a source for gold plated pickup polepieces ? I plan to use the Gibson Classic 57 pickups that were originally in the rebuilt ES335. I have replacement gold covers, but no screws...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm glad you're having fun, gentlemen.

Yesterday I went through the Allparts UK website to order the Bigsby and other thingies and found out that they did not have the items in stock. The WDMusic UK site doesn't have them either.

So I went to the Allparts US site and placed the order and received email confirmation.

Now this was strange… I got an email this morning from allparts.com basically rejecting my order and directing me to their UK rep. :D

Now this bloody gold B7 is an expensive piece of kit. I wanted to use it because it would be period correct and because it looks extremely cool, but with these setbacks I'm SO thinking about going hardtail with this one !!! Anyway, I have identified another "local" source for the thing…

Thanks Prostheta for the link to the polepieces. I was including these on the Allparts.com order, now I will have to go to Mojo for them, question is: will they take an international order just for a handful of screws ??

And I finally got word from the headstock overlay supplier !! Way overdue. Seems like the "custom" style headplates will ship next week. Keeping fingers crossed !!

Still have one more "difficult to find" item: the gold plated pickguard bracket....

Tough life that of the replica builder.... B) (Next time I'll stick to Telecasters ! :D )

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wanted to order a few parts from Mojotone and shipping just killed it. If worst comes to the worst and they won't use a reasonable shipper, ask any of our regular US guys if they'll remail. Its worked out very effective in the past for things like fretwire (clipped to smaller lengths first) and small items where the postage costs more than the items....!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

They are way overpriced but Axesrus has gold polepieces:

http://www.axesrus.com/axeScrews.htm

The Allparts ones are badly plated, you can scrape the gold off with a light touch of your nail and a screwdriver destroys them

I've never tried the axesrus ones, just thought I'd give you a heads up of a UK supplier for them. Their shipping is super fast too!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks Fliski for the link to Axesrus.

In the end I went with Mojotone, since I needed some awg42 plain enamel wire anyway. But Prostheta, you're right ! Shipping is horribly expensive !

OK, some more progress to report: Binding time !!!

This baby gets some elaborate binding. Pretty much like a Les Paul Custom.

According to vintage specs, the top is 7 layers: 2mm white, and B/W/B/W/B/W of 0.5mm each.

The back is a much simpler 3 layers: 2mm white, and B/W of 0.5mm each.

I found out that I never bought 2mm thick white binding material, only 1.6mm. I decided it was good enough and I went ahead with it.

For the back, the complete binding is around 2.6mm wide. I decided to apply it as a normal binding, so I routed a single ledge on the back of the body, 2.6mm wide and 6mm tall.

IMG_170.jpg

For the top, the only way to do it to treat the B/W/B/W/B/W layers as a purfling, and just the outer white layer as a full depth binding. So I routed on the body a stepped ledge 2mm deep for the purfling and 6mm deep for the outer binding layer. This is done in this way to preserve the stability of the top to rims joint.

IMG_171.jpg

Using the StewMac binding laminator, I made the complete binding for the back and using a heat gun pre-shaped it to minimize the spring back effect.

IMG_172.jpg

The applied it in the normal way, using white binding shavings dissolved in acetone as glue and StewMac's binding tape to hold it in place while the acetone evaporates.

IMG_173.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Using the binding laminator I prepared the 6 layers B/W purfling. I used full 6.35mm tall material. For the purpose of the purfling it had to be shaved down to around 3mm.

I rigged a very clever contraption using the dremel with a cutting disk in the precision routing base. I wanted to cut the combined binding in half, lengthwise.

Well, it didn't work. The cutting disk cuts by abrasion, generating heat. This melts the material, making the cut a royal mess.

I tried replacing the cutting disk by a metal round saw. Still generated too much heat. Better, but still inadequate.

Then my wife remembered the small band saw she uses to cut glass (she does stained glass and Tiffany work). It comes with an additional blade for plastics and non-ferrous metals. The great advantage of this band saw is that the cutting zone is water cooled. I used a straight edge as a fence and this worked like a charm !

IMG_175.jpg

Same trick with the purfling: first pre-shaped with the heat gun. Then glued in place.

IMG_176.jpg

IMG_177.jpg

And finally the same with the white binding.

IMG_179.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I dunno if this has already been mentioned. But when doing a neck like that, just like an acoustic neck, you can get a better fit, faster, if you use a chisel to back cut from the edge of the neck. That way when you're flossing it with the sandpaper to get a good fit, you're sanding less wood. You don't need much structure there either so it works since that's all on the tenon.

Chris

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I dunno if this has already been mentioned. But when doing a neck like that, just like an acoustic neck, you can get a better fit, faster, if you use a chisel to back cut from the edge of the neck. That way when you're flossing it with the sandpaper to get a good fit, you're sanding less wood. You don't need much structure there either so it works since that's all on the tenon.

Chris

Hi Chris !

I'm not sure I follow your comment. Can you clarify a bit more ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks guys !

I'm very happy with the results of the binding.

Looking in retrospect I should have probably done the binding/purfling thing on the back too, it would have produced a bit cleaner side glue line. Next time, I guess...

Water-cooled bandsaw. That is just sexy. :D

Yeah, it's sexy until you actually use it. It spills and leaks everywhere. After you're done with the cut you spend 1/2 hour cleaning the saw and surroundings !!

It is originally intended for cutting glass, with a diamond coated saw blade. A great idea, but a not so great implementation. Unfortunately it seems to be the only product of it's kind in the market.

so, the stewmac binding laminator is a must huh??

I would not say it is a must, but it is definitely handy. When you have to laminate the thin (0.5mm 0.02") stuff you need some kind of device like this to keep both of your hands free to guide and keep the pieces aligned as they are pressed together after the acetone is applied.

You can certainly make your own version, it's no rocket science, you just need to work with a plastic that will not be dissolved by acetone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Now, with the binding in place, I adjusted the neck-to-body flow a bit better. It's pretty much done now.

IMG_186.jpg

IMG_189.jpg

And started work on the pickguard.

For an ES-355 the pickguard is made of tortoise-like plastic (acetate in the 50s, some more stable plastic today) with real multi-ply binding. The binding of the oldies was a 5-ply of 0.09"W, 0.04"B, and 0.02" W/B/W. Why did it have a wider black band in there is a mystery. I decided to go with the same binding that will be used on the headstock, 0.08"W and 0.02" B/W/B/W. This is how the reissues are done anyway.

But first, a template had to be made. First for the final outline:

IMG_191.jpg

And then with a ledge for the tortoise part only:

IMG_192.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Used the template to cut the tortoise piece.

IMG_193.jpg

And also to pre-shape the bindings in the usual manner.

IMG_194.jpg

After a messy session of CA glue (the acetone did not dissolve the tortoise plastic) and acetone glue, the binding was applied.

Everything was sanded down flush, and then the pickguard was wet sanded and polished with micromesh up to 12000.

It ended up pretty well.

IMG_195.jpg

IMG_196.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey guys, thanks !! You're way too kind.

I'm just finding my way around these things at every step. Don't think for a moment that I have everything so clear before starting !!

But I do like to think the steps through in every possible detail before putting tool to wood. In most cases it pays off !! In other cases it just serves the purpose of avoiding old mistakes in favor of making all new ones…

Not a lot of progress to report. Just routed the pickup cavities.

First I reworked the humbucker cavity template a bit. The openings for the "legs" were a bit too wide and the standard plastic rings just barely covered them. I have been using wooden rings in past builds, and these seem to be a bit wider. Now there's still enough slack and the rings cover the cavities with adequate margin.

The first task before removing any wood was to draw the "real" centerline on the top. This is the centerline of the neck, against which all the hardware needs to be aligned. In practice, this can be a bit off the centerline of the body.

On the oldies, Gibson routed the pickup cavities using the centerline of the body assembly, clearly before fitting the neck. The bridge posts and taipiece bushings were aligned against the centerline of the neck, for obvious practical reasons. This resulted in some "misaligned" pickups in some of the original late 50s and 60s guitars. Have a look at these examples (click to zoom):

th_Face58_1.jpgth_A29940_figure-1.jpg

I wanted to avoid that, so I drew the true centerline by putting a long straight edge against the sides of the neck and projecting these lines on the top, all the way past the bridge position. Then found the centerpoint between these two slightly diverging lines in a couple of spots, from the neck tenon to around the bridge position. Used this points to draw the centerline. In the case of this build there's a total offset of around 3mm at the butt end of the guitar. Not too bad.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...