Les paul special build(s)

[ADFinlayson]

I've been working up some templates for a singlecut build I've been wanting to do. Up to now I've just been using PRS Singlecut templates but I wanted to come up with my own shape. I've gone with the Gibson overall shape, but used the PRS horn with an Patrick Eggle inspired shape around the pocket. Slightly more modern headstock shape, 24 frets and 24.65" scale instead of my usual 25"

I used the drum sander to taper a 2.8º angle on the neck pocket without having to worry about shimming the template on a flat top build.

I had an underling for the afternoon on Saturday so I thought that would be a good excuse to start a new build. I was very conservative when it came to him using power tools, but I did let him do a bit of template shaping with the bobbin sander,  Then once I'd roughed out the top and back, I let him do the glue up. This is where we left it.

Then on Sunday I did some routing and drilled some holes.

And started working on the neck blank. First time using the planer (jointer) to get the headstock angle right. Slightly more scary but way faster and more precise than a hand plane. Going headstock first seems to be the safest and easiest to control the blank against the fence, big it does give a rougher cut given that it's cutting up hill. So I did a few passes forward then one final pass backwards for silky smooth finish.

Routed the truss rod channel then used the mini plane to take that extra hair of material for the truss rod nut, love this little tool.

Finally I roughed out the neck and headstock shape and used a couple off offcuts to make ears. 

Not sure where I'm going with this one, I'm thinking I'd like to try my hand at a burst, also I think P90s would be cool, don't have a guitar with p90s but I do like em. Should be doing a bit more on it over xmas, with any luck Santa will get me a 24.65" slotting template. 

 

 

[mistermikev]

"way cool jr" just thought I'd set the mood for your build!  some of my fav ratt guitar playing.  cool guitar plan.  is this going to be a carved top or flat?  Kind of looks like a mini prs single cut.  should be a pretty cool build.  rawk on.

 

 

[Muzz]

This is looking fantastic, I am very envious of that mini plane and Way Cool Jr with its swing groove is definitely a great song to set the mood for this build.

[ADFinlayson]

8 hours ago, mistermikev said:

"way cool jr" just thought I'd set the mood for your build!  some of my fav ratt guitar playing.  cool guitar plan.  is this going to be a carved top or flat?  Kind of looks like a mini prs single cut.  should be a pretty cool build.  rawk on.

 

 

But he's playing a super strat

[mistermikev]

5 minutes ago, ADFinlayson said:

But he's playing a super strat

But the song is way cool JUNIOR?  you can pretend it's way cool les paul junior if you like.

[ADFinlayson]

28 minutes ago, mistermikev said:

But the song is way cool JUNIOR?  you can pretend it's way cool les paul junior if you like.

I think I've drilled a few too many holes for it to be a Junior   maybe the next one could be a Junior. I certainly like the sound of halving the electronics bill.

[Bizman62]

30 minutes ago, mistermikev said:

you can pretend it's way cool les paul junior

Why need to pretend? Isn't it obvious that the super strat player dreams about one?

"Oh Lord, won't you buy me an LP Junior? My friends all play strats and I must make amends."

[mistermikev]

9 minutes ago, ADFinlayson said:

I think I've drilled a few too many holes for it to be a Junior   maybe the next one could be a Junior. I certainly like the sound of halving the electronics bill.

well it's still way cool... so... "it's good" \v/

what is it really anyway that makes it a jr?  the flat top, the single p90, the two knobs, the pickguard... the wrap around bridge?  "way cool 64% junior"

[mistermikev]

11 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

Why need to pretend? Isn't it obvious that the super strat player dreams about one?

"Oh Lord, won't you buy me an LP Junior? My friends all play strats and I must make amends."

don't bring janis into this... she didn't even play a junior... OR a superstrat.  "freedoms just another word for nothing LES to loose" pretty sure janis was a lp custom player altho she hid it well given her folk following.

[ScottR]

Good to see you beginning to foray into your own designs.

SR

[ADFinlayson]

Well I couldn't put it down and did a bit more on it this evening. Trimmed my ebony veneer down to just oversize using using a piece of wood clamp to the bandsaw table to prevent it getting shredding, an error I've made before. 

Then I used the headstock angle offcut to true up the edge and get it to the right angle

Then I clamped down a fretboard blank in the correct spot and a nut blank so I could get the correct position for the veneer to stick it down.

Then a few steps I forgot to photograph. Got the neck taper routed and headstock shaped, and neck pocket routed. 

My fretboard blank was rough sawn so I thought I would a nice face and edge on the jointer but I had no end of trouble with it. when I ran the face through, it just seemed to chatter at the very front and take no material at all from the middle resulting in a bow. So I gave up and ran it through the sander. I had no trouble getting the face of the neck blank flat so there is clearly nothing wrong with the planer, must be just user error. 

It's getting there anyway, I left it with a fretboard glue up in progress. I paid myself for all the hard work with a Oxford Gold.

[Andyjr1515]

Good tip about cutting the plate on the bandsaw, @ADFinlayson.  Ebony is very brittle...

It's looking great

[ADFinlayson]

I seem to be steaming ahead with this one, 4mm pearl dot, 2mm pearl side dots and 57110 fret wire. Imacculate fret job too, they went in well and I didn't twat the fretboard once. Then I go to wick in a bit of fine super glue in the fret ends and end up getting it all over the fretboard, seams I'm doomed to that fate with my fret jobs. 

I'm using top-locking kluson tuners, so I drilled 1/4" holes all the way through the headstock as per the measurement of the tuners, then used the step drill from the top to get them up to 8mm, then drilled again with the 8.5 to enlarge. The bushings measure 8.8mm at the widest measurement so I will need to ream the tops out to get them in. Then once my holes were located I got to work on the headstock inlay. Annoyingly didn't have any of pieces of pearl left that were big enough to do my local in one piece so thought I would try a 2 piece logo, Looks kinda cool, don't know if I'm sold on it as a forever logo. I added the line to follow the curve on and used a piece of black veneer bent around on of the pieces to space them out and black superglue to stick them together.

I've scratch the outline on the headstock and will get it inlayed tomorrow when I've had less beer. It's my birthday so I've had steak and several Brewdogs.

[mistermikev]

well first off... HAPPY BIRTHDAY BROTHER!

looks really clean.  very nice.

super glue - was just watching this classical builder youtube video where they actually just spread super glue all over the fretboard as a finish.  as long as it doesn't pool up... I spose it'd work ok... their results were fantastic of course.  

when life gives you lemons... put superglue on your fretboard... that's what I always say!!

[Bizman62]

6 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

Then I go to wick in a bit of fine super glue in the fret ends and end up getting it all over the fretboard, seams I'm doomed to that fate with my fret jobs.

The video Mike referred to is this: https://youtu.be/qmDAIlEGO_Q?t=5580

Happy birthday, just take care with getting older or you'll go past me!

 

[ScottR]

16 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

It's my birthday so I've had steak and several Brewdogs.

Nice!

Brewdogs make good beer.

Mine was last week and I had ribs and a couple drafts from a local brewery called Baa-baa.

SR

[Andyjr1515]

On 12/17/2021 at 4:57 PM, ScottR said:

Brewdogs make good beer

Getting to our daughter and son-in-laws is a good 8 hour drive.

But they live just down the road from Brewdogs plant/bar/takeaway (yes - some Scottish roads are very long, but we're talking 5 mins)

8hours 5 minutes is worth it 

[ADFinlayson]

Thanks chaps. Yes I do like a bewdog, my only gripe with it is that it costs more than most beers with about 2/3 of the quantity. 

Jumped the gun a bit and missed a phew photo opportunities, Got all the back routing done, you can probably see that I routed the switch cavity incorrectly and glued in some little nubbins. Actually I foolishly started the router at depth inside the cavity and almost lost this bit of wood. routing the outer cavity and gluing in the extra pieces was the save.

Oh I sanded the back with the orbinal sander (80 and 120) prior to doing the outer route on the control cavity so there was a bit more surface for the sander to ride on. My sander is cheap and cumbersome and doing it after can be a bit sketchy.

I used a 1/4" washer and drew around the body on the neck tenon to get my line to carve to. Once the neck is glued in I will round all those edges over on the tenon.

I Cut the control covers out of ebony, the main cavity wasn't too bad, I roughed it out on the band saw and used a hand plane on the shooting board to get the straight edges right and the bobbin sander to do the corners. The round one for the switch cavity though, absolute bastard to shape.

 

Inlay done, the gap between the two pieces is not perfectly even which is annoying, but only really noticeable on close inspection so I'll pay more attention to that if I do it again. I do like the 2 piece design though. Had an offcut from the headstock veneer so I used that for the truss rod cover so the grain matches up nicely, though it does still need sanding.

Decided to go for a bridge hum and neck p90 in the end. Ox4 pickups are winding a set for me, 4 conductor on the humbucker so I will put a coil split on one of the tones.

I decide the 2.8º break angle was just a hair too steep so I kept the tenon a couple of mm oversized and was able to tweak the break angle by sanding the bottom of it with sand paper stuck to my slab of marble. I don't know how well you can see it in the photo but the bottom of the fretboard just kisses the maple at the very front then rises up from there, and a straight edge sat on the frets sits a couple of mm above the bridge. I haven't got anyway of measuring angle now, I'm guessing 2.6-2.7º

A few hours of sanding to do next week, 

[Muzz]

Looking so good

[ADFinlayson]

Doing some stain testers for this one. Grabbed an offcut out of bin. This piece has some amazing figure and it’s from a nearly 4m board which I’ve got 7 tops out of awaiting resawing, I hope they come out as good as this one. 

Went over it with a damp rag to raise the grain, stained it purple with angelus leather dye, I wiped the excess off when gave it a wipe over with neutral to A.) pull a bit of the colour out, B.) get the colour more even.

then I sanded it back with 120 to practically nothing, then 240, leaving only purple in the curl, then went over it with yellow crimson water based stain, again getting the surface damp first to aid dye penetration.

I’ve heard so many people say alcohol and water based don’t mixed but that clearly isn’t quite right - purple + yellow = brown and this has given me a very dark brown in the soft bits and bright yellow everywhere else.

I don’t think I’ve ever pulled off that amount of contrast before. Makes me think of an angry wasp. 
 

then looking at the figure if this piece I’m thinking tiger. So after letting it dry an hour, I went over it with angelus light rose (another alcohol based dye)

liking this a lot so thought I’d try and see if I can recreate it on another piece. Managed to dig out an actual offcut from the special build and followed the same steps.

so purple sanded back to nothing.

The yellow, although I realised after I forgot to damp the wood down prior to the purple and yellows so that might reduce penetration and there for contrast (need to do it again to be sure)

still looking pretty strong. Then the more of the light rose.

I think this could look bloody good with some lacquer on it. And I’m really looking forward to using those other tops, I don’t think I’ve had any maple with such big curl in it 

[Bizman62]

Looking at the towels it seems obvious that you aren't flooding the wood. That was talked about in another thread where a new guy was worried about dye delaminating the very thin veneer. Nice explanation of the colour combinations, too!

11 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

I’ve heard so many people say alcohol and water based don’t mixed but that clearly isn’t quite right

As many other "facts" it's true to an extent. Basically all dyes and stains are very fine pigments mixed with a solvent - water is a solvent although weaker and less harmful than many others. As alcohol mixes with water, all alcohol based dyes can be diluted with water and vice versa. If your alcohol based dye hasn't fully cured a water based layer will mix easier than a dust dry one. But given enough time water will finally solve even the driest stain. As low temperature slows down the evaporating of any solvent a cool shed may not be the optimal place for a multi-layer staining job.

[ADFinlayson]

5 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

Looking at the towels it seems obvious that you aren't flooding the wood. That was talked about in another thread where a new guy was worried about dye delaminating the very thin veneer. Nice explanation of the colour combinations, too!

As many other "facts" it's true to an extent. Basically all dyes and stains are very fine pigments mixed with a solvent - water is a solvent although weaker and less harmful than many others. As alcohol mixes with water, all alcohol based dyes can be diluted with water and vice versa. If your alcohol based dye hasn't fully cured a water based layer will mix easier than a dust dry one. But given enough time water will finally solve even the driest stain. As low temperature slows down the evaporating of any solvent a cool shed may not be the optimal place for a multi-layer staining job.

I dunno, it was fairly floody, had to make sure I got good coverage with the purple. then went over it again with neutral so definitely introduced a lot of liquid. Then I did flood it quite heavily with yellow to get good coverage over the purple. I'm pretty careful usually though because I don't want dye to run off the sides, no amount of tape will protect the sides from that.

p.s Merry Christmas @Bizman62, I hope Santa brought you some tools.

[Bizman62]

Merry Christmas to you too, @ADFinlayson. No tools, a bottle of Scotch instead. I don't need to own much tools since I don't have a workshop - you saw my shed in the picture in the Misc Stuff thread, no electricity etc. and the walls are only 18 mm thick. It's -25 here...

 

[ADFinlayson]

On 12/25/2021 at 5:13 PM, Bizman62 said:

Merry Christmas to you too, @ADFinlayson. No tools, a bottle of Scotch instead. I don't need to own much tools since I don't have a workshop - you saw my shed in the picture in the Misc Stuff thread, no electricity etc. and the walls are only 18 mm thick. It's -25 here...

 

Yes I had forgotten you pretty much live in Arctic conditions. I don't think my kind could survive in those temperatures. That bottle of Scotch should certainly warm you up though. 

[ADFinlayson]

Made some progress on finish for this one. Got the body sanded up to 220 then applied some sanding sealer - I use chestnut cellulose sanding sealer which comes in a tin for brushing/spraying (if thinned) or a rattle can. For the last couple of builds I have been flipping the body upside down and just wiping on some thinner sealer. I find this works really well for 2 purposes. 1.) it stops grain filler from getting on to the maple 2.) the sealer soaks into the side of the maple so it also helps to prevent stain from the top seeping down into the edge. I apply 1 coat, then sand with 320 to smooth it out after min 30 mins, then I repeat. 

With the back and sides sealed, As per my testers, I wet the top with a rag to raise the grain and stained it purple - Alcohol based Angelus leather dye.

Then after it had a good 30 mins to dry, I sanded it back to practically nothing 

Then I wet the top again and went at it with the water based Crimson Guitars yellow waterbased dye.

I do like this colour combo and I think if this top had a more consistent figuring through out, I probably would have left it like this, but I decided to press on with the rose. 

This bought back a touch of the purple which didn't happen in either of my testers, not sure why because that didn't happen in any of my testers and I'm pretty sure I followed all the previous steps. But pushing on, I cut the binding with 120 grit sander paper once rose had dried. You can really see the purple here although the camera seemed to make it look more purple than it was.

Then I taped the neck pocket it off and sprayed 5 mist coats of sanding sealer (the Chestnut sealer rattle can) As I did this those purple spots gradually darkened up again (hurray) This is it after sealer 

I've just glued the neck in, then I'll need to grain fill the back, sides and neck 

Then I'm going to attempt my second burst - nothing crazy, just a little bit of shadow on the edges.