How I build a Les Paul Body

[bigdguitars]

My process of building a les paul:

[Prostheta]

Funny how it is possible to tell a little from the sound of the Mahogany being dragged that it is light and should make a good choice of piece! Weird the things you notice.

I'm glad that you make a specific point of letting wood do-what-it-will after resawing. In my mind the same thing should apply to any large stock removal operation, especially things like necks when they are made from one piece of wood.

One minor concern is the glueup. Best practice for wood glues like Titebond I-III, PVA, etc. is that both surfaces are wetted with glue during application as otherwise the "dry" face is not guaranteed the same level of surface penetration by the adhesive. Reliance on one wetted surface transferring sufficient adhesive to the other face to wet it also purely through clamping pressure is in theory inadequate. In reality we get away with it as long as the other surface is fresh and clean. A cheat is to spritz the opposing face with water, however my tutor would (and does) kick my arse for it. When I glued up a couple of LP tops a few weeks back, I used roughly the same amount of glue as in the video but scraped up excess with a plastic squeegee (always in the back pocket of my overalls which is stiff with glue now) and applied to the other face of the top also. This left the surfaces less "runny" with glue, significantly reduced skating through hydrostatic pressure and I got that same "sucking together" feeling you get with casein and hide glue. Also, a very very tight join with little excess to clean up.

I had this hammered home very early on in my degree course....yawn....whilst I can't say that I have ever had unexpected problems before or after I learnt this, I guess that best practice is worth being habit. I have too many bad habits for best practice though :-D

I'm very jealous of that wine press clamp....despite me having the availability of a heated pneumatic press, it can't achieve the same pressure over small areas that these screw presses can! Very nice bit of kit....might have to look into one of those at some point in the future.

I would heavily recommend that you relegate your Masonite templates to being "master" templates and make some thicker copies from MDF. Once those get dinged up or worse burnt and chunked you'll be kicking yourself. I've never done this. Never. I do however know somebody that did this once or five times. *cough*

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That was a really detailed and informative video. It didn't help me feel any less jealous of people with organised permanent workspaces though!