A Les Paul Supreme Style For My Son

[Lord-of-the-strings]

Out of curiosity John, but what line of work are you in?

[Nitefly SA]

Isn't it obvious? He's a secret agent. 008 maybe?

[Drak]

I think that burst looks about as near perfect as one could expect, I love it.

[johnsilver]

Mmmmm. Tapas. Waterfront. Bars. Believe it or not, we went to an "English Pub" down from our hotel one night. It was drink 3 Guinness and get a free carry bag. I chose black.

Well, down here in Texxass, I'm in what is known as the "awl bidness". Unfortunately, I have no "awl" of my own.

Thirdstone, you are right that the sandthroughs completely altered the finishing plan. Without those, no burst. And I had to make the burst wide enough to cover. Also, I had difficulty spraying it more narrow. I agree the style makes it looks more vintage. I like it.

Drak. Wow! And thanks.

The fact its presentable at all is more evidence of the blind squirrel theory, as in "even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then".

Of course, "as good as one can expect" covers a lot of territory and takes into account my complete lack of experience and technique. Maybe when I grow up, I can do a finish as good as one of yours.

[johnsilver]

Well folks, nothing new to report on the guitar front. I'm still travelling now. I've been in Jakarta, Indonesia for the past week and am leaving my hotel in a few hours for a 3am (ouch) flight to Doha, Qatar for another week.

I can't wait to get home and wet sand and polish out the LP. I've been missing the guitar work - funny how that works.

At least this hotel had free internet so I could check on everyone else's progress.

Progress pics soon.

[cpsmaxima]

That LP looks GREAT!!

I hope mine comes out that nice. Please post pics as soon as you finsh it. I have been following your thread for a while. I can't wait to see it all polished up. Beautiful guitar. Just beautiful.

Chris

[Maurits]

Looks great!! Can't wait to see it finished. I'm sure your son will love it.

[johnsilver]

OK, finally got back in town and was able to work on the LP. The lacquer was nice and cured having sat for over 5 weeks. I wet sanded the entire guitar using 1000 and then 1200 grit. With the previous level sanding and the flash coats, the finish was pretty smooth so I got by starting with 1000 grit. It took a while so maybe I should have started with 800. Don't know.

Then I polished it using Stewmac's polishing compounds. I started with the medium and then did the fine. I used the foam pads in a hand held drill. For the neck and sides and headstock, I polished by hand as the drill felt awkward.

It came out pretty good. I'll let it sit for a while and then have a closer look. I haven't fully cleaned up after the polish yet when I took the pics. Got plenty of compound sprayed around my work bench. The cat escaped most of the mess.

If I'm happy, I'll proceed to install hardware and electronics next time I get a work opportunity. Soon, I hope.

Anyway, here are a couple of pics. I hope you like them.

front shot - you can see my two cars parked in the driveway

another front shot but from the other side

shot of the back - there is still some compound in the cavity cover seams and I managed to capture my fingers holding the camera

body shot outside in the sun

[mikhailgtrski]

Very, very nice!

If you want to save giving the cat a bath a random orbit sander with foam buffing pads works well without flinging compound all over... although it takes a little extra attention to make sure the recurve areas get fully buffed. As you found, yes, by hand is the ticket for the neck. A fret end will make short work of a foam pad.

Beautiful job!

Mike

[johnsilver]

a random orbit sander with foam buffing pads works well without flinging compound all over

Mike

Mike, thanks.

Where do you get the foam pads for your orbital sander? I would like to use those since my sander had multiple speeds and I'm sure would be easier to contro than my drill.

[mikhailgtrski]

Where do you get the foam pads for your orbital sander?

I used Meguiar's #W8006 hook/loop pads for the buffing compound and #W9006 for the swirl remover. I found them at a local automotive finishing store, but they're also available at amazon.com.

They work well for the sides also, and you don't have to worry so much about catching an edge and burning through. I ran them at a fairly high orbit speed. The neck and cutaways I had to do by hand, not that big a deal.

Mike

[jer7440]

Awesome job Johnsilver! That guitar is stunning. You are giving me the bug to get going again.

[Setch]

I use the drill pad on the neck too - though I do clamp the guitar down firmly by the body. If you have fret ends that will hurt a buffing pad I'd suggest they need serious attention - they should be smooth enough to run anything over them without snagging. If they can shred a buff they can do the same to your hand!

[Cracked]

Beautiful work!!!

Did you have any major problems with the fret dressing? Do you mind if I ask how long that part took?

I havent tried the arbor/caul method yet but I think I need to start. I've only fretted 2 necks, hammered in both times and neither one is done still...

Back to you now I love that burst and binding, you set out to do something very detailed after not building much in the past and did it!

I on the other hand shot for the moon and still have to leave this atmosphere!

[johnsilver]

Thanks for your support guys.

Mike, I'll look for those pads this weekend. Thanks.

Setch, the fret ends are in pretty good shape and weren't a factor in deciding how to polish the neck. I chose to polish the neck by hand because it felt more in control for me. Also, I didn't want the neck to be as shiny as the body, if that makes any sense. Hand polishing worked up a sweat though, so I might try pads next time.

Cracked, this is the first time I've pressed frets. The two previous times were hand hammered. I really enjoyed pressing and plan to do that from now on. After pressing, I cut the frets close and then filed them flush and angled them. All that, including bending the frets to radius and cutting them to rough size took a couple of hours. It took longer to bend and cut them than it did to press them. I still need to do the final fret leveling and recrowning and a final dress on the ends.

After that, its install the hardware and electronics, then set up the guitar.

My oldest son, for whom this guitar is intended, told me he ran into an old friend who teaches guitar and they are working together on expanding their blues techniques. This guitar may not be exactly the right rig for that, but I always knew he would grow up sometime.

[AlGeeEater]

Hey John, the Les Paul looks amazing, I can only hope the one i'm building right now will turn out half as good as yours.

Chris

[Daniel Sorbera]

I really like the thick black burst. It doesn't look like a "fix" for a problem.

[johnsilver]

Algee and Godin, thanks a lot!

Godin, the burst looks black but it is Colortone medium brown. Its applied pretty heavily so it is really dark.

Mike, I took your advice and tracked down a Meguiars foam pad at an auto paint shop. I used it to apply the swirl remover using my randow orbital sander (Craftsman 5"). It worked great. I felt a lot more in control because the random orbital sander doesn't have the torque my drill has or the action is different, but whatever, I liked it. I even did the neck and it didn't grab at all. The shop only had one so I need to get some more for the next project. Thanks a lot for the suggestion.

Here are a couple of updated pics after applying the swirl remover. That stuff did a great job. It came from Stewmac.

body front - 7 layer binding

body back - 5 layer binding

head plate with gold mop inlay - 3 layer binding

upper bout reflecting ceiling of my garage

waist area where sandthrough was - showing the top binding

[ooten2]

Wow that is just beautiful! Excellent!

[mikhailgtrski]

Cool, John - glad it worked for you. Looks great!

[DanielM]

that looks really good John!

[johnsilver]

OK, trouble in paradise here. When bringing the guitar in from the garage, I bumped it against my workbench.

It left a ding in the top (of course). The ding appears to be just in the lacquer and not in the wood. Here is a pic.

I haven't fully researched solutions but am about to head over to the finishing section to look for relevant posts. I did take a look at Dan Erlewine's guitar repair guide. It suggested a couple of things.

One was to heat the surface using a heat gun or something like that to allow the lacquer to soften and maybe flow back into the dent. I don't like the sound of that.

The other was to drop a bit of lacquer thinner into the dent, allow it to evaporate, then drop fill some undiluted lacquer into the dent. If that doesn't fill it completely, allow it to dry overnight, then drop some more, etc. When the gap is filled, then sand and polish.

I'd appreciate any thoughts from anyone who solved a similar problem. Thanks in advance.

[Jon]

I've worked with my guitarist (10+ years experience on repair, he worked for Jackson before they were bought off by Fender) on a few laquer repairing techniques in the past. One that worked well was using a damp paper towel and heating it up with a soldering iron. Don't let the paper towel dry out or it has a chance of catching fire. That would take a great deal of carelessness on your part, though. I wouldn't trust myself with a soldering iron or something hot above a laquer job with nothing beneath it, one little touch and you have 2 jobs to repair. I don't know if this will work in your case, since the wood is usually dented and the point in this is to push the wood back up to level the laquer back down. But it's worth a try.

This technique works fairly well for pulling dents and scratches out of bare wood as well - it will make the wood puffy and require a fair amount of sanding to get it flat. But it works.

Let us know how it works out!

[Setch]

That's a dent in the wood, lacquer has been pushed down into the dent, and probably crakced at the very bottom oft he depression. IMO, perfect candidate for steaming out. Get a paper towel or rag wet, and place a corner directly over the ding. Touch a soldering iron to it, forcing steam into the wood. This should swell the fibres back, bringing the dent flush, or at least making it less deep, so a drop fill will be easier.

MAkes sure you don't let the rag get dry, and moniter the finish to check it isn't being damaged - you can make nitro blush doing this. Once you've got the dent steamed out, leave it a day or two before you mess with it - it'll probably sink back a hair as it dries out, so it's best to wait before doign any drop fills.

Don't feel too bad, the day I finished my LP, I propped it against a rotating office chair (*** was I thinking!?) which inevitably rotated, and dropped the guitar neck first onto the base of the chair. The dent was at least 1.5mm deep, and 10 - 15mm across! I nearly cried blood, but with steaming, and *several* drop fills, it's invisible to everyone except me.

[johnsilver]

That's a dent in the wood, lacquer has been pushed down into the dent, and probably crakced at the very bottom oft he depression. IMO, perfect candidate for steaming out. Get a paper towel or rag wet, and place a corner directly over the ding. Touch a soldering iron to it, forcing steam into the wood. This should swell the fibres back, bringing the dent flush, or at least making it less deep, so a drop fill will be easier.

MAkes sure you don't let the rag get dry, and moniter the finish to check it isn't being damaged - you can make nitro blush doing this. Once you've got the dent steamed out, leave it a day or two before you mess with it - it'll probably sink back a hair as it dries out, so it's best to wait before doign any drop fills.

Don't feel too bad, the day I finished my LP, I propped it against a rotating office chair (*** was I thinking!?) which inevitably rotated, and dropped the guitar neck first onto the base of the chair. The dent was at least 1.5mm deep, and 10 - 15mm across! I nearly cried blood, but with steaming, and *several* drop fills, it's invisible to everyone except me.

Setch & Jon, thanks! Setch, your situation (ouch) sounds just like mine except bigger.

I steamed the dent a bit and it didn't really change so I'm concluding it really is just in the lacquer. The lacquer is pretty thick at that part since I used so much brown toner followed by lots of clear.

After waiting several hours anyway, I dropped filled using a toothpick to drop the lacquer. The initial drop completely filled the gap but shrank back a little so probably one more drop will do it. I'll probably wait overnight for the next drop.

If that seems to do it, then it will be back to waiting ( ) before I can level the spot, sand and polish again.