Stu.

Thank you, chaps! I've actually been considering scrapping or reworking this one. The transition from beech to veneer to walnut isn't working at all, I'm falling out of love with the beech, and it is HEAVY. Like, I've never held a complete guitar that's packing as much weight as this. I kind of want to blast the beech and top fumed eucalyptus veneer off, chamber as much as possible, and then slap a new top on.

On 7/9/2023 at 6:39 PM, mistermikev said:

still struggling to get my top processing to align with my bottom processing despite using location pins.  at the step where I glued the top to the body... the pins are really tight and I think this is due to my practice of securing non-flattened material and then flattening it via cnc as part of my process.  since my planer is only 12.5" wide I didn't have another solution until now... 16" wide drum sander I had to literally run to get... $300!  all my troubles are over (doubtful but perhaps some of my troubles are over lol)

 

still 

What a steal! I think that I have the same machine (sold in the UK as an Axminster AT406DS) and it’s excellent.

Scott’s back on it and not wasting any time! I can’t wait to see this developing 

Dark blue or root beer finish would be fun! Gotta love the classic guitar builder/luthier’s mindset of getting partway through a build and thinking “right, time to start another one!”

Everything is looking very nice and clean! That’s a great piece of maple you’ve got

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.

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.

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:

Love that weight relief pattern, nice work! I spent ages drawing out weight relief vectors and then bought the lightest wood known to man

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.
 

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. 
 

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.

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.

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!

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.

I like to think we’re all contributing to that confusing mythology just a little bit!

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.

Les Pauls are so mythically inconsistent. It’s amazing really.

Wasn’t part of the scale length issue related to how Gibson cut the fret slots using an arbor saw? Saw blades were spaced along an arbor to match fret locations, but bushings didn’t quite match the fret spacing or wandered over time, giving 24.75” ish.

I seem to have completely missed the neck and joint. That thing is wild! 

Great work so far! I like how the top is the star, so that’s elevated and the fingerboard and back are quite understated.

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.

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?