West Poole Build

[Stu.]

21 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

If it bugs you, fix it or it will keep bugging you so much you'll never want to play that guitar.

Yeah, I decided to cut and re-glue this one. The birdseye figure is a real menace for tearing or chipping out when it’s being planed. I lost a bit too much material, so this neck now has a little fillet of ovangkol in the scarf. I’ll make a jig for the drum sander to run the headstock through and flatten the gluing face nicely - I just can’t get it with hand planes because of the figure.

I also prepared and glued a bubinga faceplate for this one. The plan is to get both necks to the same stage and then batch them a bit. n=2 might save some time in set-up.

 

 

[Stu.]

And we have a neck! I’ll sand the top face nice and level tomorrow. Still plenty of meat on it for the neck taper.

 

 

Also, fingerboard prep!

[Bizman62]

8 hours ago, Stu. said:

And we have a neck!

And it took only half a week! Compare that to the endless annoyance of looking at the misaligned headstock...

[Stu.]

A bit of progress on the LP from the last couple of weeks.

Fingerboard is slotted, routed for inlays, and tapered. Next steps are to radius, glue inlays in, and bind.

 

Inlays just resting on the pockets, otherwise I’d never get them out again.

[Stu.]

Lots of work done, but not much visible progress.

Using the Elevate Truss Rod Slotting Jig Plus, I've added alignment/mounting pins to all of my jigs and the CNC mount, which is allowing me to hop the fingerboard between different processes without the need for clamps, tape, or risking misalignment.

Inlays went in. I left these to set overnight, because I've had bad experiences with accelerator spray causing cloudiness and bubbling.

And then binding time!

Following by sanding back, after another overnight hold.

It even has SIDE DOTS.

[Stu.]

After doing some YouTube research, I’ve stolen and recreated a box for routing the tenon shoulders. I’m going for 4 degrees neck angle and 1.5 degrees for the pickup plane.

I also bought some contour templates to get me close to the final shape.

 

 

 

[Stu.]

The tenon jig seems to be working, but I decided that it would be best to have the mortise ready to go first. The neck is taking a time out whilst I move the body along.

Binding pre-bent to shape and then glued on with paste (binding and acetone gloop).

 

 

 

Next steps:

Trim binding to 2mm wide, trim binding back to 6.35mm high (except cutaway), cut contours in, rout flat neck mortise, add 4 degree neck angle, rout neck mortise to depth for angled bottom, add 1.5 degree pickup plane, rout pickup cavities, and then refine that neck fit!

It might sound like a weird order, but I wanted full height binding to cover the maple cap in the cutaway and don’t trust my bandsaw to trim it down. The binding would just twist and bend if installed in a shallow channel, so full height and in before the carve!

I also plan to rout for the double battery box on the rear whilst the top is still flat.

[Stu.]

Quick updates:

Double battery box cavity and recess routed.

 

 

 

 

 

The tape came off the binding too. I’m pretty happy with the seams, but I did have to do a repair in the cutaway - that’ll be a lesson for next time. I trimmed the binding flush with the body (0.29mm or so off) today and patched up a small router nick.

 

 

 

Contour steps next!

[Bizman62]

So clean, so well planned! I'm envious!

[JAK]

That plastic battery box inset - very nicely done! I usually don’t like how the plastic boxes look, but that little detail makes a huge difference! 

On a related note - I recently noticed a lot put the battery on the centreline (production manufacturers included). Some even put it below the bridge or between the pickup cavities (which seems like poor designs to me). LP having extra space on the lower bout you don’t have to be under the bridge/tailpiece at least. Did you have anything specific with your placement choice? Convenient near the control cavity and/or aesthetically balanced?

[Stu.]

On 5/20/2023 at 8:31 AM, Bizman62 said:

So clean, so well planned! I'm envious!

Thank you! Fingers crossed it continues that way - I usually spend too much time planning and not enough time doing.

On 5/20/2023 at 8:12 PM, JAK said:

That plastic battery box inset - very nicely done! I usually don’t like how the plastic boxes look, but that little detail makes a huge difference! 

On a related note - I recently noticed a lot put the battery on the centreline (production manufacturers included). Some even put it below the bridge or between the pickup cavities (which seems like poor designs to me). LP having extra space on the lower bout you don’t have to be under the bridge/tailpiece at least. Did you have anything specific with your placement choice? Convenient near the control cavity and/or aesthetically balanced?

Yeah, they often look like an afterthought and I wanted it to read as intentional. For placement, I just wanted it safely between the strap button and tailpiece posts, close enough to drill a hole through, and nowhere near potential comfort carves. I did think about the upper bout, but that would have removed the option of an ESP Eclipse style carve and also could have ended up with the hole going through the top (the box is only small, so it creates quite a steep angle to drill through and into the control cavity). I guess you could route a channel between the body and top, in the same way as the switch cavity is connected through the pickups and to the control cavity.

[Bizman62]

3 hours ago, Stu. said:

I usually spend too much time planning and not enough time doing.

For me it's the other way around which causes at least a lot of extra pondering, trying to make clear the right order of tasks. Properly planned is half done as they say here, but jumping into the deep end is just so much fun!

[Stu.]

4 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

For me it's the other way around which causes at least a lot of extra pondering, trying to make clear the right order of tasks. Properly planned is half done as they say here, but jumping into the deep end is just so much fun!

I’m looking for the happy balance between the two approaches!

 

Now it has carve lines and a 4 degree neck angle. I need to get the mortise routed next, followed by the pickup plane and cavities.

 

The carve has uncovered a little gap in the top, but hopefully it’ll disappear into the burst. I bought the top on a whim as a pre-jointed set and won’t do that again in a hurry.

 

 

 

 

[Stu.]

Neck mortise and tenon sorted today. I’ll be getting the fit dialled in manually. 
 

I was expecting the template set to have more tolerance on the cutaway to sand the body to match the neck line, however it’s actually bang on. The fingerboard is slightly wider than the template, so it overhangs slightly. I need to either trim the binding back on both sides for symmetry or trim the board and re-bind it. 
 

 

 

 

[Stu.]

Only minor updates. I planed the neck heel down to meet the tenon, so it’s all at 30mm now. I have a little piece of ebony to use as a heel block with a small inlay.

The neck is also now all trimmed to shape, headstock rough shape is in, and the fibre board is ready to attach.

Next steps: trim and re-bind fingerboard, glue on headstock face plate and trim back, cut in pickup plane and rout those cavities! I’m excited to finish all of the routing. Soon.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Stu.]

I’ve been working on a few things recently:

Tenon shoulder fit - seems pretty good now and I have a block ready for the heel.

Headstock faceplate and nut shelf - next time I’ll cut fibreboard closer to final dimensions, because it is TOUGH.

Pickup routs (including tenon) - sorted and checked for depth.

Carve roughing - sanded out the steps from the templates and still lots to refine. I need to decide how to do the switch area and whether to add recarve to the edges. Transitions still need finessing.

Here are some shots:

 

 

 

 

[henrim]

Everything looking very nicely and carefully done!

Recarve. Personally I’m not generally into recarves, but I think a subtle recarve does fit Les Paul esthetics. Too often you see it overdone though. And that is yacky.

[woodfab]

Wow looking very nice!

[Stu.]

14 hours ago, henrim said:

Everything looking very nicely and carefully done!

Recarve. Personally I’m not generally into recarves, but I think a subtle recarve does fit Les Paul esthetics. Too often you see it overdone though. And that is yacky.

My head is in the same place. They look very nice with a subtle recarve around the bottom, but not past the waist - just enough to give a comfortable transition to the edge and remove that flat feeling. I'm not a fan of really extreme recarve.

12 hours ago, woodfab said:

Wow looking very nice!

Thank you!

 

I forgot to add that I also worked in a 0.5º pickup plane. I initially tried 1.5º, however that only cut as far as the bridge pickup. A bit of trial and error lead to 0.5º to bring the plane as far as the bridge/tailpiece.

[Stu.]

Tiny, tiny update from the weekend. I did a little sanding on the contours around the toggle switch and cutaway, which I’m much happier with now. I smoothed the rest of the contours, however I still need to get the edge transition and a little recarve down. It’s a bit too lumpy for my liking at the moment.

 

Edited June 19, 2023 by Stu.
Typo central

[henrim]

Yes, with this more contrasting light the contour is more clearly visible and I too think a re-carve is in order.

[Crusader]

Dang! everyone else's work looks so good compared to mine....

[ScottR]

This is looking very classy Stu.

SR