johnsilver

I like the sound of a poor man's burst. Tell me more. Anyone else out there see any other alternatives besides a burst, or do I have to break the news to my client (my oldest son )? Consider it a challenge for all the finishing gurus. Or am I sol?

The thought crossed my mind that I may have all of a sudden inadvertently decided to do a burst - mostly amber moving to a mid brown or something like that. Barring any other solutions ( ), I'll begin to research burst styles and techniques. Depending on my ability, that may look ok - actually, I'd be more worried about achieving a good burst than the sandthroughs.

Here is a pic of the sand through damage. You can see it near the edge of the left waist section. Thoughts?

I am making a guitar with a carved maple top on mahogany. I sanded slightly through the maple near the flat edge too far in to be hidden by the binding. I plan to finish the guitar in vintage amber dye before clear finishing so the sand through will be noticible unless I do something. Any ideas? Thanks.

I used alder for my first scratch built guitar (not very long ago) - a Tele style. I'm not experienced enough with wood for musical instruments to comment on tap tone, but I can say the wood was a pleasure to work with. Being the first guitar (before I got hooked), I was using primarily hand tools, and the wood behaved beautifully. I also had to make a two piece body. And Alder doesn't need to be grain filled before finishing. Let us know how you liked working with it.

Lowe9 is exactly right - the plans identify this as a late 50's LP Custom. I gave the dimensions but didn't specify the model, Custom or Standard or otherwise.

I have a set of plans for a late 50's LP that gives binding dimensions. It shows the top binding thickness as 0.190 overall. That's made up of inner laminated strips that total 0.120 thick (b/w/b/w/b/w) and a 0.70 thick black strip on the outside. The depth on the side is shown as 7/32". There was also a back binding that was 7/32" deep. It was made up of a 0.80 inner section (b/w/b/w) and an outer black strip of 0.70. Hope this helps. I don't have anything on modern LPs.

Helge, even though I am a new user myself, let me welcome you to the forum. You are right, there are a lot of talented, and helplful, people on this forum. I don't know much about cabinets, but maybe this site can help. Look in the Enclosures section. Good luck. [url=http://www.webervst.com/vstbbs/bbs.html]

I echo the recommendations on finding someone with resawing capacity. I found a hardwood supplier in my town who has a very large machine just for resawing. I bought a piece of curly maple from them and they resawed it for a $10 set up fee. You may also try woodworking schools if no luck with suppliers. With regard to getting multiple bookmatch sets from a single blank, keep in mind there are multiple factors including the thickness of the original blank (of course), the skill of the resaw operator, the kerf of the blade, and the fact that the resulting pieces will likely need to be jointed flat on the face and then planed to thickness. Out of 6/4 rough stock, you may be able to get two bookmatched pairs 1/4' thick.

Agree with LeeM. Stewmac definitely does carry a set of LP fretboard inlays in MOP - I bought one and it was very nice. Stewmac also sells a full size set of plans for a late 50's LP - very helpful to me in my current LP project. Also, the Gibson site does list individual LP models and gives the specs including wood for body and fretboard, inlay, binding, neck/body join location, electronics, etc. They show a picture of each and if you right click your mouse on the specs, you can download them to Excel for later reference. Heres a pic of my LP style in progress. I'm modelling it after an LP Supreme, so it has a figured maple back as well as top. Have fun.

Jivin, let us know how it comes out. I'm interested in what wood you choose and whether you are happy. I can get lacewood where I am in Texas. Also, my son lives in Melbourne. He used Tassie Blackwood for a case he made. Machined and finished very well. Maybe that's a possible body wood. I remember it being a bit expensive though. Good luck.

Funny this should be posted today. I am shopping for another plane. I just went got back from the Woodcraft store and lusted after the selection of planes. BTW, Woodcraft sells Stanley as well as Lie-Nielson planes. On my way home, I stopped at Ace Hardware and considered buying the Stanley plane they had. I admit I am a bottom feeder. I own two Stanley planes that I bought 20 years ago, because they were cheap. I have gotten them to where they perform well now, but then I haven't ever used one of the top quality planes. When I complain about them to my 80 year old father, he says "it's a poor workman who blames his tools". Don't you hate sayings like that. But I can't argue. It will work. I guess I'll continue to use the Stanleys until I pony up the big bucks for the good stuff.

Thanks. I had a lot of fun (?) making that neck. It was my first. Actually, first successful one - the first one was firewood. I used a single piece of maple as a neck blank and purchased a preslotted and radiused maple fretboard from LMI. First I routed the truss rod slot, cut the blank to rough shape including the headstock, cut down the thickness of the headstock by hand (what a pain!), installed the truss rod and glued on the fretboard. I then I carved the neck by hand using spokeshaves and rasps/files. Some pics below. Carving the neck in my bench vise. Checking the profile using templates I made from my son's 60's Tele Back of head and neck The heel Head and neck again.

You really got my interest up now when you said the web was sterling silver. A couple of weeks ago, you have me a reference to a supplier to get some silver - thanks again. I posted a question yesterday on using sterling as purfling on a headstock. If you have a chance to read it, I'd really appreciate your thoughts. If not, that's cool too. I honestly can't fathom the process required to design and inlay 80 pieces into a coherent vision on a knife handle. My son has asked me to do a pearl inlay of a chinese character centered on the 12th fret of a guitar I'm making for him, and I haven't got a clue yet.

I agree Craig - the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. I'm blown away by the whole thing, but the spider web is hard to believe.

Like Morben said. The neck/fretboard is raised above the body but in plane with the body to account for the bridge height. You have to calculate how high to put the fretboard above the top based on the bridge specs. Fine adjustments to the string action can be made using the bridge saddles during setup. Here is a pic of an early test fit of my Tele neck and you can see there is no angle to the body (at least none intended ) Here is a pic of the bridge relative to the body and neck - again no angle. The bridge is a Schaller Roller Bridge. Sorry about the size of this pic. Here is a pic of the Tele style guitar I made. No nitro yet - couldn't wait. Good luck on yours.

If the download isn't available, Stewmac sells a detailed full size drawing of a late 50s Les Paul. Costs about $15 I think.

I'm finding this very therapeutic. My first guitar body was mated successfully with my second guitar neck. Neck number one was firewood, but I got the pleasure of ripping it apart to retrieve the truss rod. One of the reasons I took up building guitars was to develop more patience. I picked the right thing. Good luck.

Thanks for the feedback on forum protocol guys. I'm still new here. After I posted my first response, I decided it wasn't very helpful so I tried again. I don't know anything about CAD (that reference in my post was to point out that my little drawing using the paint accessory on my PC was about as far from a CAD drawing as you can get). Anyway, I believe the dimensions to be accurate. I didn't make them up.

Guess I won't mention the footie again. Binding is usually on the outside edge of a guitar whether it be the body, neck or headstock. Purfling, in my simple understanding, is on the face of a guitar, whether it be the body, neck (less common) or headstock. Most times I've seen the purfling bordered on one edge by the wood and the other by the binding. Guess I'll buy some silver wire and have a go. Thanks guys.

I tried to make a drawing but it is very rough. Maybe it will help some. Hope the bad boys of CAD don't hurt themselves laughing, but I tried. The best way still is to use the pickups or a template. I used these dimensions to make my own template for standard size humbuckers (Duncans) and it worked fine.

What I was thinking about doing is routing a purfling channel and inlaying and gluing the silver wire into the channel like you would do for abalone purfling strips. I would probably use gap filling black CA to glue it in. I thought that would give sufficient support to hold the silver in place since there would be ebony on either side and CA holding it in - I didn't consider that I would have to glue sterling to sterling. I also thought I would bend the wire as much as possible, say around the curvy bits along the sides of the headstock. I can get the square wire anywhere from 0.128" square to 0.040" square. What I couldn't figure out was how best to make the corners fit at the top of the headstock where the bends are really sharp. I don't think I want to try to solder them. So it looks like I am down to cutting and filing seeking a flawless mitre, or bending sharp corners with square wire. Maybe I'll just go with plastic binding. If anything above clarified my original question, I'd appreciate any further advice. Perry, where's O'Conner - any where near the Margaret River area? Do you barrack for West Coast or Freo?

I am making a couple of guitars that will have ebony head plates - possibly in the design in the pic below. I was thinking about routing a purfling channel and using sterling silver wire as the purfling. The wire can be obtained in a square shape or flat strips of uniform thickness from Starr Gems (a reference previously obtained on this site from Clavin - many thanks). Anyone think that approach would be good? I was thinking about no binding in this design, but open to ideas. If the silver is possible, I will have to mitre at points along the headstock, and need tops to do that well. Or can I "overlay" two pieces of silver that have been pressed or hammered? I hope this doesn't sound silly to the gurus. Many thanks for any ideas.

I see no one is jumping in here. I think the best thing is to go ahead and buy your pickups and then use the measurements to make your routing templates. Alternatively, there are templates in various guitar making books or available for sale on line, etc. Hope this helps.

Lucky1, thanks for the positive feedback. I should tell you that these are my first set necks in this LP style and and SG style that I am making. You have the idea on cutting the mortise so that the bottom is angled. First, the top has to be carved to the correct angle that you calculate for the type bridge you are using, scale length, etc. I approached this by rough cutting out the body shape leaving it a little oversize to avoid tearout in the end grain. I set a sliding t-bevel to the angle I calculated and then began to slope the neck end of the body using a spokeshave, a plane, xacto knives, my teeth (just kidding about the xacto knife ) and anything else in my shop with an edge. I checked the angle frequently and was careful enough to end up with a reasonable result. I wouldn't recommend this - too trial and error and I felt as if I was bordering on disaster. Also, don't cut your pickup routes before carving the top There is a great post in the in progress work section of this forum by Setch on making of a LP. He is doing great work and his method of angling the top is more reliable and repeatable and safe. He also shows how he cut his neck tenon and mortise - beautiful. Once your body top is angled, you can then use a template to cut the mortise and the bottom of the resulting mortise will be at the same angle as the top. Sweet As far as cutting an angled mortise on a flat top, I think Setch's method with his jig would do that as well. In any case, on my SG style, I have a flat bottom mortise which means I'll need to angle my tenon whenever I calculate the angle. Anyone have any ideas on how to do that with precision?