My First Builds

[Woodworm]

Hi guys,

I've posted a few queries here and have always appreciated the response.

I have however felt guilty about not giving anything back.

I hope the following goes some way to address that issue.

If you want to listen to someone telling this story rather than read the following, both of these guitars are featured in this video, (it’s not my channel):-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNMKrcyaQ4Q&t=995s

 

In 2006 we moved from the UK to Cyprus, where we lived and worked full time until 2013, when we started to split our time between Cyprus and the UK.

At the start of 2019, in my spare moments, (when I wasn’t renovating our house in the UK), I started my first ever guitar build, a Les Paul. This progressed, relatively, slowly however towards the end of 2019 all I had left to do was install the electronics and hardware.

Late in 2019, we sold our “new build” house in Cyprus and bought a 300 year old house in the same mountain village and decided this would be our permanent home and we would sell up in the UK.

We travelled to Cyprus in March 2020 and we all know what happened then. We were effectively marooned in Cyprus, over the next 18 months we had 14 flights back to the UK cancelled and my Les Paul languished, unfinished for 18 months. We finally got back to the UK in July 2021 and as well as putting our house on the market I could finish my Les Paul. All I had left to do was fit the electronics, tuners, bridge and tailpiece, make a nut and finish it off with a setup, which I managed in between prepping the house for a sale.

Here are some pics from the build:-

Here are the pics of the finished guitar:-

 

Specifications:- Two piece sapele body.

16mm flamed maple drop top, faux binding.

Two piece maple neck, with volute, indian rosewood fretboard, 22 frets, locking tuners, bone nut, flame maple headstock veneer.

TOM roller bridge.

Irongear pickups, Blues Engine and Dirty Torque.

I used Crimson Guitars stains, Water based.

I used Crimson Guitars high build finishing oil

 Other than the headstock shape it’s basically a 1959 LP.

The guitar weighs in at 9lb 9oz, I’m not particularly bothered by this as I only play sitting down.

 

What mistakes did I make? By the looks of it I think I’m half a degree out on the neck angle, the TOM is a bit high, there's plenty of adjustment available, I just didn’t expect it to be sitting where it does.

The guitar plays great, I managed to get the action really low, it really sings even if you play it acoustically.

 

 

Right Ho, part deux!

As I said we got stuck in Cyprus for 18 months. I was a little put out that my first guitar build was languishing, unfinished back in the UK. Pre pandemic.

In Cyprus I was one half of a duo and we performed throughout the year at our local coffee shop. In April 2020, my good friend and the other half of our duo died, very suddenly, (it wasn’t virus related). He had been looking forward to me bringing the Les Paul over to Cyprus so he could give it a good old twang. Unfortunately, after he died we had to clear his house very rapidly. Amongst other things I bought a large sheesham wood CD rack.

Having had to leave my first guitar build unfinished in the UK, my thoughts turned to building another, I fancied having a go at an SG type. My first problem was wood, there was literally nowhere open to obtain any, I did however have the sheesham wood, from my mates CD rack and a certain amount of old garden furniture, which I believe was teak or similar.

A friend is a builder/joiner and he asked around, amazingly he managed to find a 1500 x 200 x 100mm piece of quarter sawn sapele, for 30 euros, I couldn’t believe my luck!

Back in the UK, I had a nice workshop, (large shed), with lots of power tools. In Cyprus I had, virtually, nothing, a couple of cordless drills and a ten year old, cheap as chips, router. I did have access to a band saw. 

Here’s my workshop:-

 

I managed to acquire various hand tools, second hand, which helped. Along the way I made a router sled, radius sanding block, levelling beams, various jigs and a bench sander out of an old broken band saw.

I bought some plans and began thinking about templates.

 

 

The body is a three layer sandwich, the top and bottom layers are 10mm thick sheesham wood boards, the filling in the sandwich is a 20mm thick board I made up from 15 strips of what I believe is teak, that I got from some old garden furniture. The body is 6mm thicker than an actual SG and I was a bit worried that it would be too heavy.

To combat this I chambered the body, on the bass side there is a chamber that runs from the upper to the lower bout, another behind the tail piece, there is another that runs between the control cavity and the upper bout on the treble side.

One advantage, (in my eyes), of using a wood sandwich for the body was I could mount the pickups directly to the body rather than use a scratch plate, which I don’t like.

Finished Article:-

My main problems building this were as follows:- 

I ruined a perfectly good fret board by getting 2 fret slots in the wrong place, I had to make a new one.

I made a mistake with the position of the bridge pickup cavity. I was using the dimensions given on the plans, what I hadn’t taken into account was that measurements on the plans were for mounting the pickups directly onto the scratch plate. As I’d decided not to use a scratch plate there was not enough room between the pickup cavity and the bridge to fit the pickup ring. I fixed this by rerouting the cavity 6mm further up the body and filling the extra space with an offcut. You’d have to look carefully to see the repair, but it’s actually covered by the pickup ring.

 

What did I learn? I was a draughtsman by trade, so one of the first things I did when I got the plans was go over them with a fine tooth comb. The plans were dimensioned in imperial and metric. I’m not sure how they did the conversion but some of the metric dimensions were way out and I’m not talking fractions of a millimetre; the worst was 4 mm out! My message to anyone using premade plans is check all the dimensions first!

 

What did I take away from this build?

Well I made a nice guitar that contains something from my friend's life, I know he would have liked that.

Secondly, I had the full set of power tools back in the UK, in Cyprus I had virtually nothing, everything had to be done outside. My only luxury was access to a band saw. Despite all this and despite struggling at times I enjoyed the process more! 

Specifications:- 

Body, sheesham - teak - sheesham sandwich. 

Neck, two piece sapele, sheesham fretboard, 22 frets, dual action truss rod, “Boston” tuners, sheesham headstock veneer. 

Pickups, Irongear humbuckers, Blues Engine and Dirty Torque. 

Gibson PBBR-030 Nashville Bridge Schaller Stop Tailpiece

Body stained with water based leather dye.  Clear coat, automotive rattle cans, around 16 coats!! 

Total weight 9lb 3oz, see above.

The guitar plays well, has a nice low action, it is not as loud, acoustically as the Les Paul.

 

If anyone has any comments or questions I'll be happy to respond.

Since finishing the SG, I've also finished a short scale bass, unfortunately it's out on loan to someone who can play it, so no pics atm.

I'm also about 50% through a double cut build, will feature a P90 and Humbucker in the bridge, no pictures yet 

 

 

[Muzz]

Both guitars look super cool, love the outdoor workshop.

[nakedzen]

Awesome. I sure would enjoy being able to build outdoors all year. There's snow up to my knees in our yard.

[Bizman62]

Accompanying the two above, an outdoor workshop would be nice but there's snow up to my crotch in our yard.

A question or three about using automotive rattle cans: How thick was an individual layer? How long between layers? Did you sand in between? Plus a bonus question: Did you finally sand the finish level and polish it or is it shiny just from the can?

[Woodworm]

3 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

Accompanying the two above, an outdoor workshop would be nice but there's snow up to my crotch in our yard.

A question or three about using automotive rattle cans: How thick was an individual layer? How long between layers? Did you sand in between? Plus a bonus question: Did you finally sand the finish level and polish it or is it shiny just from the can?

Rattle can lacquer, I sprayed it outdoors and hoped no insects or dust would land on it. I had the guitar body flat, some scrap wood in the neck pocket and a large hook in the strap button hole.  Once I'd put a coat on one side I'd flip it over to protect the lacquer.I When I sprayed it the temp was in the the high 30s (degrees C) so the lacquer was probably dry after a couple of minutes.  I followed the instructions on the can which said re coat after 15 mins.  As for how thick the lacquer was going on, I used four 500ml cans, however as soon as the cans got low enough to start spitting I started a new can.

Once I'd finished spraying I left it for a month.  Then I sanded with wet and dry, starting at 800 and finishing at 3000, I then polished it with some automotive cutting compound using a drill and polishing mop.

[Bizman62]

Thanks! I guess you were more patient than I've been with my rattle can experiment. In trying to get a good coverage I managed to get runs every time. The higher temperature also helps, our workshop is in a gigantic hall made out of sheet metal, two stores high open space which means it's not too warm when it's -20 outside, at least not on the floor level. If you only have half a day once a week to do the finish you'd like to get as much done as possible, resulting in fanciful inventions for carrying barely touch dry products home in the car without damaging neither the finish nor the upholstery.

[mistermikev]

that purple paul is really eye catching.  nice work.

[ScottR]

Those both are great looking and so is the outdoor work area. I'd spend a lot of time there even when not building.

Thanks for sharing!

SR

[Woodworm]

25 minutes ago, mistermikev said:

that purple paul is really eye catching.  nice work.

Thanks. if I was being picky. I would have liked a bit more black to purple burst, but I'm very happy with the overall effect.

[Woodworm]

8 minutes ago, ScottR said:

Those both are great looking and so is the outdoor work area. I'd spend a lot of time there even when not building.

Thanks for sharing!

SR

Thanks, lockdown was very strict here, I spent the best part of 18 months in my "workshop", the only problem in the summer is there is no shade from the sun until 11am.