I decided that I wanted to jump in and make my own guitar. At first I decided about a month or so ago I was going to make a custom X shaped guitar but the design had alot of problems when it came to the neck(fitting my fat fingers to the lower frets). I ended up buying a piece of mahogany and getting it for dirt cheap. I decided to make a ESP style guitar which look exactly like the Les paul only instead of fixed bridge I am using a floyd rose tremolo(I seen a few of the ESP's with them). I was wondering how thick the ESP's are,and if someone had some profile shots are cad drawings of either guitar. I already freehand ed my own design based on the Les paul dimensions, and I just want to see how far I am off. I really didn't think the stew-mac plans were worth it and also I was impatient. The body right now is 2" thick and I am contemplating leaving it as is and sanding it into shape(the carved top), or adding a piece of mahogany to the bottom for the extra thickness and so I can route the routes without worrying how to do it. Any heads up you guys can give me since this is my first guitar project, but probably not my last ( I have a friend who wants me to make him a custom guitar if he likes how mine comes out and so far its looking really nice).
Oh and lastly how do you recommend to finish the body in a solid color? I had some deft sanding sealer that I was going to use to build up the surface with after filling in any small imperfections with some wood filler. Then I was just going to use lacquer based auto primer, followed by dupli-color gloss black paint, and then add many coats of clear on top of that.
Thanks for your help in advance with this project and I will be posting some more pictures today after I route out the electronics bay, and a bay for the springs on the tremolo to go. Maybe even cut some of the aluminum plates as well.
