blakeish

you're right, it's not fair to call him a prick on account of me not being able to buy parts from a guitar builder. you're right, he's not a parts supplier. Of course, I do choose to stand by my remark in how he's rudely dismissed and dealt with me in regards to setups/ repeairs he's done on my other electric....but also, that's neither here nor there. Anyways, the tuning keys were purchased from Wildberry Castle on Ebay, and the description of the product goes something like this.... "Set of Keystone style", 3 x 3, tuning keys in black finish. Includes mounting nuts, washers & set screws for the "ear" on each tuner. These fit standard size 3/8" inch tuner holes. *Good quality & machined well. Tuners come packaged new. *Questions always welcome & encouraged" here's the R-E-A-L link. and thank you for your post, thegarehanman, I do hope they make you a mod, sir.

Call me retarded, and I know you will...... But I am in a bit of a bind. I ordered THESE tuning keys for my first build 9LP copy) a while back, and well, the machine screw (which is a black flathead/phillips-head that measures right on 1/16" by my ruler, top to tip) somehow disappeared out of the end of the tuning key.........which is kind of important if i want the tuning key to stay in one piece..... and for the LIFE of me, I cannot find it's replacement at any hardware store. I'm thinking of starting to call the guitar shops and see if they will just HAND me one (although the luthier/guitar repairman in the downtown area wouldn't sell me any of his plastic binding, but he'd sure as hell put new binding on my guitar for me if i needed him to.....he's a bit of a prick.) I don't really want to have to buy new tuning keys, my budget is running thin, and well, the guitar is all done, just needs all the hardware added and wired up........then it will probably explode, but at least im that far, aye?

try Graph Tech Guitar Labs, they have a rather large selection of blank and pre-cut nuts, and also a few different materials too..........quite a huge selection. Very fast dilevery and great cust. service too. boy did that sound like spam or what?

i hear ya. good luck to you sir!

thanks southpa. yeah i used it to counter bore into the back of my warmoth neck's headstock that had slightly smaller tuner holes than needed drilled into it. Well, I think it was that one, I cant recall specifically......but there was that needed mod to the neck, yes. peace.

Aye......the brad point..... that's funny you should mention that, really. In the cabinet shop where i work, that's where all the tools are for the guitar const. I and my co-worker dave constantly make jokes about how everything in the shop is horrible and needs replacing.....and it's true, there isnt a chisel there that's not been used to shave down some screws or is covered in wood glue. and there's a whole set of at least 30 brad point bits ina box....although only the 25/64" bit and the 2" bit are actually present. The drill press, well.....let's say if you bump into it tooo hard, it may fall apart.....again. But luckily through...well....luck, everything's gone rather smoothly. but it's nice to know I haven't ruined my guitar. Thanks for those who took the time to reply, I appreciate it. peace.

It's really cool to see your designs taking a similar shape each time, to me it looks like you've got good focus on what you're 'envisioning' your guitar's design to be. What I recommend, if you'd like your drawings to take on a more 'technical' or 'blueprint' feel, is to pick up some larger sheets of grid or drafting paper, bust out the straightedges, compasses, angle finders and whatnot, and take a look through some books on perspective, technical drawings, and the like. I think you'd be surprised at how your designs will take a much more uniformed look to them. I'm not familia with the programs used for CAD drawings, but I would alsoo recommend maybe giving a sample program a try, if you search around for one. Sorry if my reply was too vague to give you specific help, but it was just a passing thought I had about your drawings. They look good thus far, the initial sketches are great.

So i just drilled the post holes for the TOM and Stoptailpiece....... bridge placement was nailed just fine, andgle and all. tailpiece went great until drill bit jumped and dug into the body a bit fwd of its intended mark by 1'16"...well, just a bit strong of 1/16". I'll safely assume this could be a problem somehow even though when I measure, and pull strings through everything checks out, and the tailpiece even fits on (just a tad bit more snug) but there's a noticeable angle to it, since it's off a bit. Here's my intended correction.......fill the hole, and redrill. If there's not a probllem with a stop tailpiece being off by a hair, then I'll leave it be and just try to deal with it every time i look at my guitar..... any suggestions? thanks.

I'm also putting up my nom for Thegarehanman.......make him a mod. Yes. Cool guy, great attitude, always willing to help out. next i'd like to nominate myself.......not really.

Okay, sooooooooooooooooooooooooo I fixed the bridge problem-o......easy pleasy lemon squeezy, found a nut driver small enough to hold onto the ones on the tune-o-matic's backside (or front? who cares......) so that's taken care of, lefty tune-o-matic conversion is done..... So if the bridge's angle is there for only adjustment room purposes......can i mount it flush and just fly with it? is that offset a neccessity? cause i dont really think so, since ive seen it both ways, moreso perpendicular, actually. someone back me up, or prove me wrong, either one would be a great help. peace. thanks.

Simply put, I've been playing left handed guitar for about 6ish...maybe 7 years now. Simply as a hobby really, college has cut into my playing time drastically, it's been a good while since I've picked up my acoustic. But since before I started playing, I wanted a Les Paul. D*mn they look good. So here's my first attempt to build one. And going into it knowing I don't posses the skills of even a novice woodworker.....there were some shortcuts taken, esp in regard to the top contours.......and there's also no pitch angle to my top, more like....a bevel around the edges, lol. But all seems well thus far....so here's some pictures. Pick it apart, set it on fire, praise it a bit, whatever, I'll take any comments I can get, any feedback is good feedback in my opinion. Just wanted to share this with the forum. And much thanks to those who've been so kind to answer my Q's along the way...... I'm done rambling now.... The top is a slightly flamed maple, the flame got a hell of a lot more slight as I carved and sanded down...oh well, free maple is good maple in my head. The body is 3pcs of Black Walnut.....it's got a beautiful grain, again got it at the shop I work in for free, my boss dug it outta a pile for me, such a nice guy. There's the back. I can't wait to give this a shot or six with the finish....a friend who works next to me used my extra walnut/maple to make an end-table, and yeah, the walnut makes for such a rich chocolatey color. I love it. Here's the majority of what I did by hand with a 3/4" gouge....I'm no woodcarver, but I'm happy with what I acheived in the end......hand sanding is loads of fun to do final smoothing......no. its. not. oh well, live and learn....right? Theres the more finished version, we can see where I got a little impatient waiting for the neck and pre-empitvely routed the neck pocket..before i had the neck...aaaaaaand then subsequently refilling and rerouting it when the neck DID arrive. tsk tsk......and asthetic boo-boo I'm willing to live with, and the lighter maple isn't god awfully noticeable I don't think.... The neck is a LP scale one from Warmoth, and it fits nicely, the angle looks to be in good shape, I feel I'm on the right track so far..... And now it's scraping at the binding.....fun fun. I'm eventually going to dye the top a light blue, so as to fit in nicely with the chocolately walnut, and yellowish maple neck...the hardware is all black..I'll post more when I have more. Thanks to anyone who happened to take a peek. Peace. EDIT: some more pictures after the binding was scraped down and everything was hand-sanded again a few times, thanks for the comments that were left, as well. Yeah Russ, i think my binding does actually look a little bulky since it stands out so well against the maple. Also, my maple top is substantially thinner than specified (5/16"-ish), so maybe it brings the binding out more, but that's just my 2 cents. Also clearly visible is the little mineral streak (character mark) that I found while sanding down, oh well. The flame looks alot more prominent than usual in the last pic.....we'll see how much the dye brings out.

Kudos, from one lefty to another...... looks great, the Rhoads has always been a nifty looking guitar in my opinion.... looks to be coming along nicely, congrats on tackling the task of making your own neck!

Yeah, I had given thought to that, and I have no as ofyet ordered any new nuts, but I'm kind of trying to avoid the task of slotting the nut myself, as I'm not very confident, seeing how they should be done.....correctly? Also, cutting down the nut I have presents the problem of it not being tall enough to have the string clear the 1st fret......At least by eyeballing it it looks to be almost too close for my comfort.... I'm hoping in the back of my mind that the Graphtech nut I found for lefties really is, in fact, 1-11/16" if I think of any more tedious questions or concerns, I'll bump this post up again. Thanks though, Southpa, for your assistance. I appreciate it.

I'm not an experienced builder by any means, but I did have a similar problem with my neck pocket, as I routed it too large by FAR to fit my warmoth neck before it arrived in the mail....oh well, a lesson in patience. I also dont think my suggestion is rather pertinent, as you seemed to already finish the guitar, but uhm, what I did with my larger pocket was just shim up and glue in some more maple and then painstakingly reroute the pocket and sand till it fit snugly....sure, my maple is a little lighter than I used in the pocket, but oh well, it'sa 1st guitar, and I'm willing to make sacrifices in asthetics.... here's a picture where you can see what I'm talking about....

Yeah, I assumed that fender style would be finicky and really incompatible to mount, since that little center foot is there....oh well. Just a shot in the dark. Yeah, the nut that I bought from GraphTech is their 'standard' 6 string electric. It would be a lovely, perfect fit...only needs to be sanded off the bottom for string action height...but it's right handed, and has that radius/bevel on the back to break that angle, as does the fender. In truth I've been all over the net and have yet to see a pre-slotted nut that is squared on the top..... ...it's as though they dont exist.... I could, in theory, flip around the nut I have, but I have an odd feeling it wouldn't be the smartest choice, since that radius for breaking the string angle would be on the front....right? GraphTech offers a nut that has the same E to e spacing as the standard nut (1 7/16"), only this one is a 'jumbo'...it differs slightly from their standard electric one in the following measurements: The jumbo nut is 11/32" tall, so it gives me roughly 3/32 to sand off the bottom. The nut is 1-23/32" side to side, which gives me a slight amount to sand off each side, which I'm thinking I can shape sand it prettyeasy to fit width wise......although my only concern is if I do that....would the E and e strings break out from the sides? I assume no, but I am wary. The jumbo nut is roughly 1/16 less wide than the standard. So there might need to be some filling/coverup finesse about hiding a 'sliver' of truss rod showing btwn the back of the nut and the bottom of the cover plate......I can deal with that. So if the jumbo is offered lefty (which it is) and it's giving me 3/32 to sand off the bottom. it's also giving me like 1/64(if my math is correct) to shape by hand off of each side to fit width wise. and to cover the flat area of maple along the bottom of the nut, it needs to be 1/16 bigger, but I'm thinking this is fixable problem I can do with some plexiglass, other type of plastic, maybe even epoky or silicone or such. So, do I send back my right handed standard with the back curve and trade it in for the Jumbo lefty with some minor mods needed? aye? thanks again to anyone who could be of any help, notably Southpa for posting a reply. EDIT: found a nut that's 1-11/16 wide, lefty slotted, just deep enough etc etc, but the 1-11/16 measurement is in the title, yet the length in the descrip. is 1-23/32....so I emailed them about the descrepincy...if it's really 1-11/16, great, but if not, would the jumbo be a modifiable substitute you guys think>?

Sorry if any of my questions have been answered. It's not as though many left-handed people ask questions on this board, which sort of negates the use of the search engine in most specific cases.... I have a neck from Warmoth that when I ordered....apparently was specified without a nut. I know that I specified a nut width....otherwise there'd be no way for them to know what width to make my fretboard....and before I go into a rant about Warmoth's huge margin for error in their over-the-phone ordering....onto the meat of my question. basically, taking into account the space needed for strings to clearthe first fret....the space on my neck which has been sanded flat before the angled headstock has the following dimensions for a nut to fit into.... Hopefully My Image will upload/link correctly. So there's the space available..... Here's the other question....the area is obviously flat from edge to edge, even where the truss rud nut sits. there's a flat piece of metal area too. So would a fender style nut with a curved bottom/flat foot work well enough?> it just seems to me like the flat foot has nothing to sit into? if anyone could shed some light on how I could tackle this, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks Black Mariah, I appreciate the reply. Hopefully all can be mended. Yeah, it won't budge, I took the edge of my razor on my Xacto knife and poed down in to see how deep the gaps were, fourtunately around the neck pocket, the optical illusion played by the shiny epoxy on some of the wood caused me to see a gap that really wasn't there, and the other gap is only about 1/4 of the way down the height of the binding, so we'll see how the mending process goes. thanks again for the advice.

After writing a book, I decided no one wanted to read four paragraphs..... Here's the consice edition of my problem, which I couldn't find anything specifically related to using the search engine. Seriously. Used Perfect Gule 3 (chart on back read it could bind plastic to wood, concrete to wood, and probably bowling balls to ceilings, I was convinced) it's a five-min epoxy, workable after about 30 mins, or so the operator at customer service told me. Bound .070" ABS black plastic from StewMac to a very cleanly routed binding channel. Used at least one roll of masking tape, pulled over edges AND across the body, ESPECIALLY around the cutaway area (It's a Les Paul copy, btw) let it sit all taped up for close to four hours. I was confident it was glued in nice and tight, so I popped the tape off to check my work. Epoxy seemed cemented and hard. Took the guitar home, and in about a day, the epoxy has come to full density, and the binding came a BIT (just shy of a 32nd of an inch) out from the body near the neck pocket and in the middle of the cutaway. So what's the fix for this? I'm considering epoxy to fill in the gaps, tinted/colored black? I mean, I'm 80% sure the binding won't pop off any more. And it's SUCH a small gap, too. Or do I just jump back on stewmac, order some new binding, new glue, and just reroute? God, I do NOT want to do that 2nd option, if I can avoid it at all. I'm sorry, if this has been asked, I used 'binding' as my search query, and no one seemed to have this problem. thanks to anyone offering advice. I appreciate it. EDIT: I checked out a couple pages about regluing and repairing binding at FRETS.COM......If those methods are the way to go, cool. But if anyone has any other info or whatnot, that woould be great too, thanks.

Once again russ, thanks for the notes, and the new guitar vocab, heh. I appreciate it. Yeah, no prob about 'detailed' info, this topic seems more of a 'touch and go' thing as I'm coming to understand. mattia - thanks bud, I appreciate the location of the info golly gee this board is neat. haha

I've noticed on a LP body that the top has what looks to be a flat edge running around the guitar, before the carve comes into play, I'm assuming this is to keep the binding easier. Since I'm doing an LP copy, I was wondering how far in does this flat area go? Anyone have any idea? I looked through the search on tops, couldn't find anything, though not too much new and different info came through on "carved top" or "carving a top" thanks in advance.

At first, the guitar does look rather unplayable, due to the points of the stars. Of course this was 1st stated by Rhoads56, who albiet the apparent sarcasm, had a point, maybe rethinking the whole design, or project, may be in order. I'm no builder, but it looks really intense. Especially since you mentioned carving the star's raised areas (looks like it would create hell in a handbasket over the bridge/ pickup areas.....) I have a suggestion if you'd like to pay homage to The Mighty Met in custom-guitar fashion: here's my idea. Althought, the hair and stuff would be hard to shape, and as far as pickup/bridge/knob placement.....don't even ask. All joking aside, good luck with whatever you do. Don't hurt yourself making that original Metallistar design......other ideas popping into my head to symbolize the band (HUGE A** truck tires, any type of alcohol, facial hair, EXTREME facial expressions, expensive artwork and stuff, lawsuits, horrible taste in musical direction, inability to just give UP as a band......im ranting.)

:::whispers::: hey, come closer...... careful about neck angle questions, they'll bombard you with messages about the search engine. annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd rightfully so, There's quite a few posts about this topic. But also remember, egdeltar is rather correct, it does really all depend. hey, how's that for a completely vague post? eh?

Well, they have some great prices on their catalog, although using their webiste to search their stock is disappointing, it appears as though over 40 percent of what's in their catalog isn't on the site, eh. I emailed them twice, asking about their mahogany body blanks and maple tops. Haven't gotten a reply yet.....maybe it's still tea time, eh? Sorry, didn't mean to knock anyone from the UK with that. I finally decided im making a stark-frickin'-white les paul, and keeping the binding solid black, with black hardware. Extreme color contrast? Yes. Rediculously boring? Probably. Oh well, I think i'll put something silly or memorable in decal form somewhere on the body, behind the bridge..... ANYWAYS..... Anyone know off the top of their heads a guesstimate as to what the cost would be, in USD, to ship some wood from the UK? I mean, with what i found in their catalog, the body wood and top pieces are like, under 100 bucks, so, if shipping cost is low enough.....craftsupplies is my new best friend. Even if shipping is double their local rates, its still REALLY good price wise..... QUESTIONS I THOUGHT OF WHILE TYPING THIS.... I'm assuming painting an all white guitar, might as well swap out the body with Adler or Swamp Ash, to save money?.....I'm not too delicate when it comes to recreating a LP's tone..... So yeah, I used the search, didnt find EXACTLY the info I wanted, so I'm sorry, if this is a repost.

I have the drawings for a 1959 Les Paul. I plan on building the body myself, from scratch. I'm pretty sure I can adequately handle this task. The neck, however, I do not think I could properly do, nor do I have the funds. I looked to Warmoth for help, they offered this information: (cut and pasted blue bits) "Also keep in mind that our Les Paul bodies are in the 25 ½” scale instead of the 24 ¾” like Gibson made LP’s." (does this mean the body is bigger? smaller? or the same size as a LP from 1959??) "The 1959 Les Paul drawings you have will not be compatible with our necks due to the scale differences. Remember that Gibson made LP’s are in the 24 ¾” scale while our necks are made for the 25 ½”. That means the bridge placement on these plans will be incorrect" (I understand this but i DO NOT understand why they cannot tell me where to move the bridge TO. I emailed them with other questions and I guess if I BUY a body from them they can mark all over tha damned thing, but apparently in an email they have no idea what to tell me, I feel a bit jipped, honestly.....I just want to know where to relocate the bridge from the original spot, all i need is a measurement.....) "You can route the Strat heel pocket, if you’re a skill wood worker this shouldn’t be a problem. But with a Tune-O-Matic bridge you have to angle the neck pocket down so the strings lay over the neck properly." (I knew this already, but I appreciate his attn to detail.....but WHAT ANGLE??? I still don't get why they can't tell me, but they would route it themselves if I again, BOUGHT their body) So what I need to know, basically, since I ramble: Is my Les Paul body going to need to be bigger/smaller? how much? anyone know the figures? If no body size modification is needed, how far from the original bridge pins do i need to route, and in what direction? What angle do i route the pocket into the body at? He told me I was shooting in the dark with this idea, and I understand with my limited knowledge, I could be, I suppose I just don't WANT to be, since it seems SO feasible.... If anyone who is versed enough in the subject help me out here, I would appreciate it, very much. Thank you to anyone in advace who can provide ANY helpful information. I really am in debt to you.