Blackdog

This is just amazing ! Your finishing is top notch (and very tasteful) ! That was an incredible save you did there. Those micro bubbles of the nitro can be a pain ! I also have concrete floor in the garage and every time I'm moving a guitar in and out of the spraying booth I hold my breath in fear.... So far I have been extremely lucky. Congratulations, it's looking seriously good !

And that exactly was the goal. Thanks !

Hi Scott ! Thanks, but finishes are not really perfect... I still have a long way to go. Definitely the part of the job that can make my life miserable at any given moment...

Hey ! Likewise ! The Goldtop is a sexy thing, isn't it ? I love how it ended up. First time I make a Goldtop but wanted one for a very long time.

Well, technically, the two are Fifty Nines ... The left one is a '59 Les Paul Replica I built some years ago. The right one is the new FiftyNine...

And... The Hollowbody: Same carve as the FiftyNine, on top of more evenly flamed hard maple. Trans-Black finish on the top, natural on the back. Hollowed Mahogany back and honduras mahogany neck. Faux binding on the top (exposed maple), a single sound hole and cocobolo binding on the B. rosewood fretboard. Fret markers are black MOP/abalone “V” blocks. Humbuckers, ABR-1 bridge and aluminium tailpiece. Schaller tuners and a cocobolo faceplate.

The FiftyNine: Has a bit more dramatic carve on the top of nicely flamed hard maple. Light Sunburst. Solid, light Mahogany back and a mahogany neck. It has a faux binding on the top (exposed maple edge) and flamed maple binding on the cocobolo fretboard. Fret markers are MOP trapezoids. Humbuckers, ABR-1 bridge and aluminium tailpiece. Vintage Kluson tuners and a cocobolo faceplate.

(Descriptions from the earlier posts) The FiftySeven: A gentle carve, more LP-ish, on a hard maple top finished as a Goldtop. Solid, light Mahogany back and a Spanish cedar neck. Cream plastic binding on the top and the cocobolo fretboard. Fret markers are simple offset dots. Humbuckers, ABR-1 bridge and aluminium tailpiece. Vintage Kluson tuners and a simple black faceplate.

Hi guys ! I hope everything has been fine with you and your families. I can't believe that more than a year passed by since the last posting. Day job during the pandemic has been very hectic. Very difficult to find the time to do the things that bring me pleasure, but I managed to finish these three concept guitars. I wanted to provide some closure to the thread and show you the finished products. I believe that the goal of achieving a Les Paul that is not a Les Paul has been successfully achieved. In playability and sound they are very much what I expected. Pictures are not the best, but here we go...

Very valid point. And actually simpler to execute. Actually, a bullet nut like the 70s Fenders could do the trick nicely. The centerline of the spotfacer is 1/8" above the TR center just to reduce the weakening of the headstock a bit. I will consider your point for the future, this is one of those things you do automatically after building a few Gibsony tributes... I never broke a headstock, but saw a few. I believe the splines should take care of most of the risk.

This is serious stuff my friend ! These are so organic in a Catalan Modernistic kind of way ! Amazing work ! And that finish !!! How do you get such a good polish inside those scrolls ? Not my style (I'm a lot more boringly predictable), but deeply impressed by the quality of your work. Nice touch that signature carved volute of yours !

And then I cut the headstock shape.

Now about the "ears" for the headstock... The ears usually added to the sides of the headstock have the double purpose of making up width for the headstock shape (so you don't have to use a very wide neck blank), and to add reinforcement to the headstock, which is all short grain due to the tilt back. The somewhat snake-head shaped headstock of this design calls for oblique ears to properly fulfil the second objective. This is actually in-between the classic Gibson shaped headstock and the vintage Flying Vee headstock ears.

Exactly this ! This was the idea behind the template design.

Time to continue with this story. Now it was truss rod installation time. I opted for a vintage style, straight/tilted channels with a maple fill strip for the three guitars. I have been using this simple TRs with good success. This is the TR style used in classic Gibsons up to the early 60s. This is a straight rod in a slighly oblique channel that is 1/8" shallower at the headstock. It needs to run fairly close to the back of the neck to be effective, and this is why Gibson changed to the curved ones when they went for thinner necks in the 60s. Frankly, if I were to make any changes I might go for the curved ones, but it is unlikely I will use the two way TRs for the foreseeable future. I like the idea of less steel and more wood on the neck, and in my experience, with careful neck construction and stable wood there’s no real need for a two way TR.