mistermikev Posted April 30, 2023 Report Share Posted April 30, 2023 have been on a deep dive afa building my next project which is going to based on the 59 lp burst. I've been pouring over several docs that I've found, pictures, threads on historically accurate dimensions, etc. It has been a pretty enlightening experience. I'm not interested in historically correct headstock shape... but intend to have the neck profile, body carve, scale length, headstock angle, and truss rod spot on to the original, Have purchased some historically accurate pickup rings, pickguard, cavity covers, inlays and binding that is "close". Using a gotoh abr-1, and have purchased some single piece body stock in genuine mahogany. Also have some qtr sawn genuine mahogany neck blanks. Have not found anything better than the granadillo pictured below for fretboard but that may change if something comes along soon. few things I've written down: Headstock Angle... 1904-66: 17 degree 1966-73: 14 degree 73-present: 17 degree Truss rod... 1959: straight channel 5/8 near bridge, 1/2 near nut 1960: curved truss rod channel Scale length... 1954: 24 3/4 1959: 24 9/16 1969: 24 5/8 1992: 24 9/16 Pickups... 53-56: P-90s 57: seth lover humbuckers introduced Bridge... pre 54: wrap-a-round 54: TOM ABR-1 (custom) 55: TOM ABR-1 (gold top) 62: TOM ABR-1 w/ retainer added 1970-1980: schaller harmonica bridge 1975: Nashville bridge introduced Models... 53: The custom aka black beauty and the goldtop 58: standard 61: standard discontinued and SG Custom introduced 68: lp re-introduced 1974: Norlin Era - volute introduced Was surprised to learn the vintage pauls of that time actually had a straight channel that had an angled depth. Earlier versions just had a straight channel (no angle) and in 1960 they started doing the radius'd channel. have finished my 'straight angled' channel version. Going to build my own truss rod for this one. (there is a great thread here about the process - thanks for that guys!) I'm still working out the details on a 60s slim line version I will do with the radius channel and vallute... but have purchased a stew mac stainless modern rod I'll use for that. there are a number of jigs I'll need for this build... one of them is a jig to do the rebate where the neck joins the body. I've done this by hand before using sandpaper strips and pulling them through the join... but figured it can be done more accurately with a little bit of thought so... doh! momentary lapse of senility here... this is for a 4.5 degree lip on a neck/body join... essentially the idea is you slide the neck into it and then ride the router around 3 sides to make the perfect neck/body fit. 59LPNeck_v1.9.pdf 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted April 30, 2023 Report Share Posted April 30, 2023 This should be fun! If I remember correctly, Gibson started out as a mandolin company. That headstock still has a lot of mandolin in it. SR 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted April 30, 2023 Author Report Share Posted April 30, 2023 4 minutes ago, ScottR said: This should be fun! If I remember correctly, Gibson started out as a mandolin company. That headstock still has a lot of mandolin in it. SR you are spot on there. I went looking at old mandolin headstocks when I came up with that. Have always loved those mandolin scrolls. Going to be a real challenge to do multi layer binding on that with curved joins... not sure how I'm gonna pull that off but I'm committed to trying anyway! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted May 1, 2023 Report Share Posted May 1, 2023 2 hours ago, mistermikev said: you are spot on there. I went looking at old mandolin headstocks when I came up with that. Have always loved those mandolin scrolls. Going to be a real challenge to do multi layer binding on that with curved joins... not sure how I'm gonna pull that off but I'm committed to trying anyway! Yeah, that pretty much kicked my ass on that mandolin kit I built some years back. It was only the second binding job I'd ever attempted (and last) and I was in way over my head. It'll make you sweat a bit, but you'll pull it off nicely. SR 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted May 1, 2023 Author Report Share Posted May 1, 2023 1 minute ago, ScottR said: Yeah, that pretty much kicked my ass on that mandolin kit I built some years back. It was only the second binding job I'd ever attempted (and last) and I was in way over my head. It'll make you sweat a bit, but you'll pull it off nicely. SR well... I've got some ideas on how I can mitigate the issues... I hope they'll work! Having a cnc, should give me a leg up... I plan to cut the shape of the binding channel into some scrap and that way I can get the pieces bent and hopefully the angles cut before I try to glue them to the headstock. I also plan to go watch some tutorials on the mandolin sites. all that said i'm sure I'll swear! 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
avengers63 Posted May 1, 2023 Report Share Posted May 1, 2023 40 minutes ago, mistermikev said: ...all that said i'm sure I'll swear! Surely the only part of the process common to all builders. It is definitely an intrigal part of mine! 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted May 1, 2023 Author Report Share Posted May 1, 2023 7 hours ago, avengers63 said: Surely the only part of the process common to all builders. It is definitely an intrigal part of mine! Hehe, true dat. if you aren't swearing at some point you probably aren't doing it right!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stu. Posted May 1, 2023 Report Share Posted May 1, 2023 Shaping the tenon for a Les Paul neck with the little shoulders is absolutely the worst! Are you going for a 4º neck angle and then 2.5º pickup plane angle? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted May 7, 2023 Author Report Share Posted May 7, 2023 so... finished working on my radius truss rod version. I've thought a lot about the 'norlin era' les pauls and wondered "what if they hadn't gone with pancake bodies, multi-piece mediocre tops, and multi-lam maple necks?" Thought I might try to make this version reminiscent of that time... they had the 60's slim taper necks, a valute, and "boat paddle" headstocks. Figured my headstock is 'close enough' hehe. resawed some lovely straight grained granidillo for the 59 version... stuff smells wonderful to cut! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted May 8, 2023 Author Report Share Posted May 8, 2023 I'm sure there are better ways to do this... but as I sometimes do, I just did this with brute force. took a picture I liked and made it suitable for inlay. hours and hours. converting an image to handful of colors, then doing a vector import of the the lines... then hours and hours of cleanup and adjusting individual lines to make it look "not jagged"... then hours and hours turning the vectors into little puzzle pieces. Worth it only for the learning process. This will be the headstock bling for my humorous name: "the marlin era" throwback to "the norlin era". I guess I need to find some blue recon stone or other blue inlay material for the blue and light blue parts... white mop for the most of it and gold mop for the yellow part. will also need something gray for the stripes. some of the details are so small I will probably just get some colored dust of some sort. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crusader Posted May 8, 2023 Report Share Posted May 8, 2023 Wow, talk about making things hard for yourself! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted May 8, 2023 Author Report Share Posted May 8, 2023 8 hours ago, Crusader said: Wow, talk about making things hard for yourself! hehe, thanks for noticing! the inlay - for sure there are a number of very small pieces that are going to be hard there... and just the sheer number of pieces overall... s/b a challenge. there's a number of other things on these builds I specifically ran towards to challenge myself. haven't done a 7-layer binding so that will be a learning experience but doing triple binding on that headstock? instead of 45 deg angles... there are a number of curved meeting places... that is going to be hard. the neck profile on the valute version - leaves 3/16+ of wood at the back of the neck... going to have to be spot on on my measurements/stock-size there. This will be my first time doing both the angled straight truss rod, and the radius truss rod. Could have just gone for the std double action truss... but I hoped to learn some things. Also going to make my own truss rod for the one style. I'm also planning to do some experimental stuff with the finish on the lp custom verison. That said I'm letting myself off the hook on the ctrl cavities... could have gone for the magnetized covers but decided I'd just do plastic store-bought for this exercise. s/b enough real trials here!. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
avengers63 Posted May 8, 2023 Report Share Posted May 8, 2023 I highly recommend using crushed stone for the smaller bits. 1) It comes in various sizes, including powdered. 2) It's a hellofalot easier than cutting out the teeny pieces of shell. 3) Using both stone & shell will give the impression of varied textures, enhancing the overall visual interest of the package. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted May 8, 2023 Author Report Share Posted May 8, 2023 6 minutes ago, avengers63 said: I highly recommend using crushed stone for the smaller bits. 1) It comes in various sizes, including powdered. 2) It's a hellofalot easier than cutting out the teeny pieces of shell. 3) Using both stone & shell will give the impression of varied textures, enhancing the overall visual interest of the package. right on... couple of those pieces aren't much bigger than my .0177 bit... so not really going to have a choice there since something that small will likely get spit out into the garage never to be found again! I was thinking what I will probably do is buy some recon stone for the blue parts of the inlay and then take some pieces over to my spindle sander and make some matching dust. what I'd really like to do is get into some thin agate pieces I have as the blue is spectacular... but that stuff is way too thick (3/16") and way too hard to mill. perhaps I can buy some crushed agate... gonna go look right now! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bizman62 Posted May 8, 2023 Report Share Posted May 8, 2023 2 hours ago, mistermikev said: Also going to make my own truss rod for the one style. Just FYI, we've been advised to use welding sticks as truss rod material, should we want to build a single action rod. Don't know the actual type but they're plain metal (black steel) so that alone should take you to the right direction. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted May 8, 2023 Author Report Share Posted May 8, 2023 18 minutes ago, Bizman62 said: Just FYI, we've been advised to use welding sticks as truss rod material, should we want to build a single action rod. Don't know the actual type but they're plain metal (black steel) so that alone should take you to the right direction. already bought mine a week ago and they are welding sticks, so right on. Would like to do stainless but I'm told threading them is a giant pain so we'll save that for another experience down the line. will just put some anti-seize on the nut side threads and hopefully that will ensure no rust for a long time. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted May 9, 2023 Author Report Share Posted May 9, 2023 so looking over my 'les flaus' build thread it occurred to me that my neck angle on that one was 4 deg... figured I had better do a mock up for these builds and confirm. 4 degrees seems like the magic number for me. on this neck it is setup to join the body at the outside of the 16th fret (at fret width) and the neck plane should end at the top of the neck pickup route. given those variables... I mocked it up using the pinnacle locking bridge I have and jescar fw58118 frets to find I'll have .14" of upward play w/o cutting slots into the saddles... which is really more than I need. I want to keep my bridge tight to the body bridges tend to be most stable when the studs are screwed in as much as possible. further you want to have your tailpiece bottomed out on the body and a lower angle gives less of a chance of the strings hitting the back side of the bridge as they approach the tailpiece. well... 4deg works for this, it worked on my 27.5 scale barritone... I suspect it'd work for almost anything and it's a nice round number. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ADFinlayson Posted May 9, 2023 Report Share Posted May 9, 2023 IMO 4º is plenty enough, I normally shoot 2.5-3.5 on my builds which is the sweet spot, the difference though is that the fretboards on my singlecuts tend to sit a mm or two above the plane of the body where as your 59' the fretboard will be sat on the body, that makes a big difference. I got this book recently, which I reckon will be some useful source material for you! I've been meaning to buy it for ages but it was crazy expensive - I think they must have done a reprint though because it's only £30 on amazon at the moment. It's got loads of cool descriptions of all the different bursts, all about the plastics and pickups of the era etc. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted May 9, 2023 Author Report Share Posted May 9, 2023 3 hours ago, ADFinlayson said: IMO 4º is plenty enough, I normally shoot 2.5-3.5 on my builds which is the sweet spot, the difference though is that the fretboards on my singlecuts tend to sit a mm or two above the plane of the body where as your 59' the fretboard will be sat on the body, that makes a big difference. I got this book recently, which I reckon will be some useful source material for you! I've been meaning to buy it for ages but it was crazy expensive - I think they must have done a reprint though because it's only £30 on amazon at the moment. It's got loads of cool descriptions of all the different bursts, all about the plastics and pickups of the era etc. right on. I've said it before... crazy how arbitrary it is... one could almost make ANY 2-5deg angle work. have heard a lot about that book. if you read any good tidbits def pass them on. I've been spending a lot of time over at mylespaul.com and reading through old threads and looking at various design docs. The guys over there really have a lot of knowledge about anything from historically correct binding to literally where the wire channel should be. On the one hand... I love their enthusiam about that one guitar... on the other - historically accurate binding seems a stretch too far... for pete's sake it's PLASTIC! There is a guy who visits a lot over there... bartlet... he has some crazy build threads where he takes it to the n'th degree. I don't want to go quite THAT far. I like the idea of copying the body carve as close as possible, the scale length, the neck profile, headstock angle... but I can't pay $200 for a brazillian rosewood fretboard blank! One has to draw a line somewhere. all that said... the truss rod... that is a real learning experience. having one of the gibson modern one's on hand... it is SO delicate! .167" of stainless rod. IDK that I want to only build with single rods from here on out... but it is a beautiful thing that it is that simple, that slight... and yet plenty effective. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ADFinlayson Posted May 10, 2023 Report Share Posted May 10, 2023 yeah the plastics can get a bit silly, the buytrate pickup rings on crazyparts.de are 99 Euros + shipping, 129 Euros if you want them pre aged I would rather spend 200 on a braz fretboard than the fancy plastic, but I kind of think if you're building a proper 59, then go all in or it's not a proper 59. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted May 10, 2023 Author Report Share Posted May 10, 2023 29 minutes ago, ADFinlayson said: yeah the plastics can get a bit silly, the buytrate pickup rings on crazyparts.de are 99 Euros + shipping, 129 Euros if you want them pre aged I would rather spend 200 on a braz fretboard than the fancy plastic, but I kind of think if you're building a proper 59, then go all in or it's not a proper 59. I've wrestled quite a bit with the "go all in" and the point where we start to diverge is the headstock... just not going to copy a headstock for my own reasons. so at that point... it's not going to be a "proper 59"... perhaps 97% of one. The original bridge was zinc... so imo you can spend more on getting the exact zinc mixture but A) its zinc! and B ) if I was going to spend $200 on a bridge it would be aluminum or steel... not zinc. in fact for the "marlin era" I've bought an all aluminum locking bridge. I'll go with zinc from gotoh - they have been very good quality for me and also make a nice tailpiece - aluminum just like the orig. philadelphia luthier has butyrate pu rings for $17.99 and according to many those are as close as they get. Not planning on relic here so, no interest in that. they've (phila) also got very accurate pickguards, ctrl cavity covers, knobs, and some fairly close celluloid trapazoid inlays. I'm not above spending money on wood... that single piece genuine mahog was not cheap, and neither were the gen mahog neck blanks. the brazillian rosewood... it'd be one thing if I was paying $1-200 for some pale moon ebony... but the brazillian rw on the originals is just black. I reserve the right to change my mind and snag one... but I just don't think it'd look/feel/sound different from rosewood/granadillo/ebony w some dye. I think I'll get a guitar that looks, sounds and feels like a 59'... but more importantly it'll be another chapter in my study of the masters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crusader Posted May 10, 2023 Report Share Posted May 10, 2023 Just wondering if you are keen to make it rigid-dig 59 Les Paul, are you concerned about the scale length? I will never have a real 59 LP in my hands but my 59 Reissue, 61 Reissue and ES-137 all used 24 3/4" by the Rule of 18th. Therefore the nut to 12th fret measures 12 9/32" which is probably why people think its 24 9/16" 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted May 10, 2023 Author Report Share Posted May 10, 2023 2 hours ago, Crusader said: Just wondering if you are keen to make it rigid-dig 59 Les Paul, are you concerned about the scale length? I will never have a real 59 LP in my hands but my 59 Reissue, 61 Reissue and ES-137 all used 24 3/4" by the Rule of 18th. Therefore the nut to 12th fret measures 12 9/32" which is probably why people think its 24 9/16" like anything else burst... there is a lot of dif contention on the scale length. "Don MacRostie and Dan Erlewine did extensive studies of Gibson fret scales on a pile of guitars from the 1920's up to current models.From what they have found, Gibson has not actually used the 24-3/4" since the early 50's. The most common scale they found was 24-9/16" although 24-5/8" was also used." "The actual scale length is not 24-3/4". It is 24 5/8" on at least five instruments between 1953 to 1961 that I´ve mesured during the day.Gibson suposedly used 24-3/4" before 1953 then changed to either 24-5/8 or 24-9/16"" as I understand... 24 3/4 was based on the early advertisments... but the early lesters were actually not very precision in their scale length and apparently you can find horrifying discrepancies in the frets. With that in mind I used 24.562 (ie 24.5625 or 24 9/16) as one of the design docs I relied on early was based on an actual 'copy' that was measured to that scale. The "marlin era" version is 24 3/4 because it is a more standard measurement. Also I can use that fretboard work if I ever want to do an early gold top or black beauty as I understand several were measured at that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crusader Posted May 10, 2023 Report Share Posted May 10, 2023 4 hours ago, mistermikev said: like anything else burst... there is a lot of dif contention on the scale length. "Don MacRostie and Dan Erlewine did extensive studies of Gibson fret scales on a pile of guitars from the 1920's up to current models.From what they have found, Gibson has not actually used the 24-3/4" since the early 50's. The most common scale they found was 24-9/16" although 24-5/8" was also used." "The actual scale length is not 24-3/4". It is 24 5/8" on at least five instruments between 1953 to 1961 that I´ve mesured during the day.Gibson suposedly used 24-3/4" before 1953 then changed to either 24-5/8 or 24-9/16"" as I understand... 24 3/4 was based on the early advertisments... but the early lesters were actually not very precision in their scale length and apparently you can find horrifying discrepancies in the frets. With that in mind I used 24.562 (ie 24.5625 or 24 9/16) as one of the design docs I relied on early was based on an actual 'copy' that was measured to that scale. The "marlin era" version is 24 3/4 because it is a more standard measurement. Also I can use that fretboard work if I ever want to do an early gold top or black beauty as I understand several were measured at that. Great info, I find this topic very interesting and the more I hear about it the more I love it. The only other person I've heard talk about the Gibson scale length is David Collins in this video. You can watch the video or here's the bits about Gibson - (I like the first bit LOL) (2:54) Gibson’s fret spacing system in the first half of the 20th century is so bizarre that thus far it has completely evaded any kind of explanation that I know of (3:40) Gibson hired some folks at the University of Chicago to help them with this in the late 1940’s (3:56) what Gibson apparently got back from their friends at the University happened to be the 16th Century Rule of 18, literal 18 divisor (4:12) With 12th root of two spacing using a 17.817 divisor when you get to the 12th fret you will be exactly half way up your scale. Start with a 24 and 3/4 and your 12th will fall at 12 and 3/8th (4:27) When you use the old 18 divisor however your 12th fret now falls a bit short, landing instead at 12.285 inches from the nut instead of 12.375 (5:00) So Gibson does actually space their boards to a 24 and 3/4 inch base scale length. But since they’ve continued to use this Rule of 18 up through to this very day, their real scale length, or relative scale, ends up nearly 3/16th of an inch shorter Evaluating historical scale lengths can get even trickier because there was a lot of tooling error that changed over the years. They kept using the same base scale for intended layout but if saw blades got worn, or were changed, this introduced a lot of variation. You can actually find scales measuring from just over 24 and a 1/2 inches up to near a full 24 and 3/4. Most fall around 24 9/16th to 24 5/8th though (5:53) Gibson’s Bozeman factory builds their accoustics with modern fret spacing, 12th root of 2. But they actually set their scale length to 24 5/8th which keeps their final layout quite similar to historical specs 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted May 10, 2023 Author Report Share Posted May 10, 2023 22 minutes ago, Crusader said: Great info, I find this topic very interesting and the more I hear about it the more I love it. The only other person I've heard talk about the Gibson scale length is David Collins in this video. You can watch the video or here's the bits about Gibson - (I like the first bit LOL) (2:54) Gibson’s fret spacing system in the first half of the 20th century is so bizarre that thus far it has completely evaded any kind of explanation that I know of (3:40) Gibson hired some folks at the University of Chicago to help them with this in the late 1940’s (3:56) what Gibson apparently got back from their friends at the University happened to be the 16th Century Rule of 18, literal 18 divisor (4:12) With 12th root of two spacing using a 17.817 divisor when you get to the 12th fret you will be exactly half way up your scale. Start with a 24 and 3/4 and your 12th will fall at 12 and 3/8th (4:27) When you use the old 18 divisor however your 12th fret now falls a bit short, landing instead at 12.285 inches from the nut instead of 12.375 (5:00) So Gibson does actually space their boards to a 24 and 3/4 inch base scale length. But since they’ve continued to use this Rule of 18 up through to this very day, their real scale length, or relative scale, ends up nearly 3/16th of an inch shorter Evaluating historical scale lengths can get even trickier because there was a lot of tooling error that changed over the years. They kept using the same base scale for intended layout but if saw blades got worn, or were changed, this introduced a lot of variation. You can actually find scales measuring from just over 24 and a 1/2 inches up to near a full 24 and 3/4. Most fall around 24 9/16th to 24 5/8th though (5:53) Gibson’s Bozeman factory builds their accoustics with modern fret spacing, 12th root of 2. But they actually set their scale length to 24 5/8th which keeps their final layout quite similar to historical specs some great info there. I've read much the sm. you see threads out there - guys arguing about 24 5/8 vs 24 9/16 vs 24.562... and ironically the kind of precision that was available back then would make it highly unlikely that you couldn't start from any of those three and end up at any other. Even today... with cnc... getting precision to 5/1000 is only possible if you happen to have calibrated your machine that day using a brand new bit! Further that actual difference any one of those scale lengths would make is pretty small. I can def hear the dif between 25.5 and 24.75... but 24.75 vs 24.5625? zero chances I could pick that out. that said... it is a fun exercise to try to do it as close as possible to the original. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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