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How Was The Routing Of This Guitar Done?


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http://www.12fret.com/new/Gibson_Les_Paul_...e_Root_Beer.jpg

I'm guessing the guitar body was made with the wood shown on the sides (this was routed) and a layer of tiger stripe wood was steam bent and glued to the top and bottom... am a right?

Also, is there a name for that white edging on the guitar body?

(first time planning to make a guitar, sorry if it seems like a basic thing)

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http://www.12fret.com/new/Gibson_Les_Paul_...e_Root_Beer.jpg

I'm guessing the guitar body was made with the wood shown on the sides (this was routed) and a layer of tiger stripe wood was steam bent and glued to the top and bottom... am a right?

Also, is there a name for that white edging on the guitar body?

(first time planning to make a guitar, sorry if it seems like a basic thing)

The name of the white edging is binding.

you're right about the wood shown on the sides, routed.

and the wood for the top and back are carved that way, not steam bent.

im also trying to figure out how they did the wiring... :D

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The Supreme has a fairly large plate for the output jack - the wiring channels are routed into the body before the maple top is glued on, then the pickup routs are done before carving the top. The wires, switch and pots are wired outside the guitar, then fished through the rout for the output jack plate, helped by accessing the cavities without the pickups in place (much in the same way you wire up archtop guitars). The pickups are then soldered to wires that lead to the switch and pots.

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The routing was definitely done before the maple top was glued on. I've seen this done a number of times and contemplated building a les paul like that. There is one major disadvantage, with most of the methods used to do this, you can not alter any of the wiring once it has been placed in because it was glued in that way. The best hope you have is to make any modifications through the output jack routing as erikbojerik said. If you are planning on building a guitar I wouldn't recommend this for a beginner build, because everything related to wiring, switches, pots ect. has to be done perfectly the first time.

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The routing was definitely done before the maple top was glued on. I've seen this done a number of times and contemplated building a les paul like that. There is one major disadvantage, with most of the methods used to do this, you can not alter any of the wiring once it has been placed in because it was glued in that way. The best hope you have is to make any modifications through the output jack routing as erikbojerik said. If you are planning on building a guitar I wouldn't recommend this for a beginner build, because everything related to wiring, switches, pots ect. has to be done perfectly the first time.

I wouldn't recommend it at all actually. It'll look nice, but it'll make repairs to the electronics nearly impossible(or, at best, a huge pain in the ass). On a hollowbody it's okay most of time.

I guess it would all depend on the person. I'm okay with back plates. I'm actually working on one now with glued in pickup rings, so I opened up a section in the back, behind the pickups, so they can be removed that way. Otherwise, you would never be able to change or repair the pickups. It would look nicer without that big plate in the back, but I think it's a good trade off.

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The routing was definitely done before the maple top was glued on. I've seen this done a number of times and contemplated building a les paul like that. There is one major disadvantage, with most of the methods used to do this, you can not alter any of the wiring once it has been placed in because it was glued in that way. The best hope you have is to make any modifications through the output jack routing as erikbojerik said. If you are planning on building a guitar I wouldn't recommend this for a beginner build, because everything related to wiring, switches, pots ect. has to be done perfectly the first time.

I wouldn't recommend it at all actually. It'll look nice, but it'll make repairs to the electronics nearly impossible(or, at best, a huge pain in the ass). On a hollowbody it's okay most of time.

I guess it would all depend on the person. I'm okay with back plates. I'm actually working on one now with glued in pickup rings, so I opened up a section in the back, behind the pickups, so they can be removed that way. Otherwise, you would never be able to change or repair the pickups. It would look nicer without that big plate in the back, but I think it's a good trade off.

Surely the routed out section around the pickups would be deeper and wider than the picups themselves... so if you unscrew them, you can just push them down, to the side a bit and slide them out

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The Supreme has a fairly large plate for the output jack - the wiring channels are routed into the body before the maple top is glued on, then the pickup routs are done before carving the top. The wires, switch and pots are wired outside the guitar, then fished through the rout for the output jack plate, helped by accessing the cavities without the pickups in place (much in the same way you wire up archtop guitars). The pickups are then soldered to wires that lead to the switch and pots.

I agree. I doubt they worked on the guitar with the pots installed. I will say that looks like a bitch to fish into the body. I have worked on several archtop guitars and they were a pain to reinstall the pots, I had to resort to using dental floss (wish I had rubber tubing at the time). That looks easy compared to this one. I can only imagine that the pickup wires are stuffed into the cavity as well.

I always wonder what they were thinking when they design these instruments what ever happend to designing a new body shape.

I think a zipper would be helpful instead of the upper binding. Call it the LP Zipper.

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I wouldn't recommend it at all actually. It'll look nice, but it'll make repairs to the electronics nearly impossible(or, at best, a huge pain in the ass). On a hollowbody it's okay most of time.

I guess it would all depend on the person. I'm okay with back plates. I'm actually working on one now with glued in pickup rings, so I opened up a section in the back, behind the pickups, so they can be removed that way. Otherwise, you would never be able to change or repair the pickups. It would look nicer without that big plate in the back, but I think it's a good trade off.

Surely the routed out section around the pickups would be deeper and wider than the picups themselves... so if you unscrew them, you can just push them down, to the side a bit and slide them out

No, I tried that. It doesn't work with this particular body. There isn't enough room for the pickups to drop all the way down.

Edited by NotYou
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I did a similar thing on my last electric:

http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.ph...c=37659&hl=

I didn't want to put a cover into the wood on the front or back so I came up with this idea. The cover is on the bottom edge of the body and out of site most of the time. The pictures linked off of the main thread show how I routed inside to create a cavity so I could enclose the electronics and shield everything. It was quite fiddly to wire up but I don't plan on changing things around too much. I used strings down through the holes, tied to the components and pulled them in. Some parts were prewired.

coverfr5.th.jpg

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I'm gonna change my mind to the jack plate idea. Thinking about it it wouldnt be hard to do all the wiring outside the guitar then all that has to be done is shove the pots out the holes. Doing the electronics before the top is glued on would be impractical because you might have to scape all the laquer from the pot shafts or mask them off. Not sure how the pup selector was done though.

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