SOLLYGTRS

Here are my current builds that I currently going on.

I began carving the body today. I used the routing templates that everyone else seems to use, but in stead of sanding, I used scrappers. It took a long time but it was enjoyable.

That's a beautiful looking body! Thank you for sharing! I use a safe-T planner as well. It's certainly made my like easier.

I use Suwannee Lumber. So far they have never failed in having what I'm looking for. Thanks for weighing your body! That eases my concerns. My Traditional is around the 10 lbs mark. If I end up around that mark, I will have no complaints.

I hope some of these pics aren’t too dark as I tend to keep the garage door closed due to the fact that my shop dog is usually helping me out. PS: Sorry for the typos. My phone has a mind of it's own. Below is Harley and my #1 getting a string change:

Now, about this weight thing. I know I still have to carve the top and do the routing for the neck and pickups, but this seems a little heavy to me.

Next, I went to my trusty sander and cleaned up the edges.

After letting it dry for a day, I unclampped it and rough cut the top with the band saw.

Now is a good time to talk about weight relief. I never play out anymore. I did in my younger days, but this thing will hardly move from inside my house. That being said. I didn’t weight relieve her at all. As you will see, it may be a problem later. Here the top glued and clamped to the body.

For the top, I’m using 1 inch thick flammed maple. It is not book matched, but I honestly don’t care. I’ve read that most early LPs weren’t. My next step was to glue up the blank. Here she is right before going into the clamps.

Next, I worked on the control cavity, three way cavity along with the wiring route.

The body is now trimmed and planned flat.

I know a lot of people use the router to smooth out the body at this point, but honestly the router scares the ever living %^*# out of me. So I could’ve to sand down to the template.

Here I have rough cut (very rough some may say) the body using the template with my band saw.

Next, I printed off the plans I downloaded online. I compared it to my Les Paul before to make sure the dimensions were accurate. I doing this to show that you don’t need to spend money on plans or templates if your a beginner like me. The free ones work just as well. I did add a volute to the neck for my template.