Well Here's Goes Nothin....hehe

[blakeish]

Simply put, I've been playing left handed guitar for about 6ish...maybe 7 years now. Simply as a hobby really, college has cut into my playing time drastically, it's been a good while since I've picked up my acoustic.

But since before I started playing, I wanted a Les Paul. D*mn they look good.

So here's my first attempt to build one. And going into it knowing I don't posses the skills of even a novice woodworker.....there were some shortcuts taken, esp in regard to the top contours.......and there's also no pitch angle to my top, more like....a bevel around the edges, lol. But all seems well thus far....so here's some pictures.

Pick it apart, set it on fire, praise it a bit, whatever, I'll take any comments I can get, any feedback is good feedback in my opinion. Just wanted to share this with the forum. And much thanks to those who've been so kind to answer my Q's along the way......

I'm done rambling now....

The top is a slightly flamed maple, the flame got a hell of a lot more slight as I carved and sanded down...oh well, free maple is good maple in my head. The body is 3pcs of Black Walnut.....it's got a beautiful grain, again got it at the shop I work in for free, my boss dug it outta a pile for me, such a nice guy.

There's the back. I can't wait to give this a shot or six with the finish....a friend who works next to me used my extra walnut/maple to make an end-table, and yeah, the walnut makes for such a rich chocolatey color. I love it.

Here's the majority of what I did by hand with a 3/4" gouge....I'm no woodcarver, but I'm happy with what I acheived in the end......hand sanding is loads of fun to do final smoothing......no. its. not. oh well, live and learn....right?

Theres the more finished version, we can see where I got a little impatient waiting for the neck and pre-empitvely routed the neck pocket..before i had the neck...aaaaaaand then subsequently refilling and rerouting it when the neck DID arrive. tsk tsk......and asthetic boo-boo I'm willing to live with, and the lighter maple isn't god awfully noticeable I don't think....

The neck is a LP scale one from Warmoth, and it fits nicely, the angle looks to be in good shape, I feel I'm on the right track so far.....

And now it's scraping at the binding.....fun fun.

I'm eventually going to dye the top a light blue, so as to fit in nicely with the chocolately walnut, and yellowish maple neck...the hardware is all black..I'll post more when I have more. Thanks to anyone who happened to take a peek.

Peace.

EDIT: some more pictures after the binding was scraped down and everything was hand-sanded again a few times, thanks for the comments that were left, as well. Yeah Russ, i think my binding does actually look a little bulky since it stands out so well against the maple. Also, my maple top is substantially thinner than specified (5/16"-ish), so maybe it brings the binding out more, but that's just my 2 cents. Also clearly visible is the little mineral streak (character mark) that I found while sanding down, oh well. The flame looks alot more prominent than usual in the last pic.....we'll see how much the dye brings out.

Edited November 10, 2005 by blakeish

[thegarehanman]

It's looking exceptional; that's especially true if you're a "sub-novice" woodworker as you claim. My only quarrel is with the binding, it looks a bit bulky, I guess that's the best way I can put it. It looks like you did a respectable job of carving the top; I don't know why everyone's so scared to do a carved top.

peace,

russ

[thewrathofraf]

lookin good man. im hoping mine turns out that good. i have no woowdworking experience but the project has begun any way lol.

-RAF

[Lietuvis]

That is looking great, man! You are definitely not sub-novice...