mistermikev

Some great advice here too, yes I think I will try to use a nail at either end of the glue up to mitigate slippage. Thank you for chiming in!

Right on BisMan, that's a good tip I've seen it myself but forgot about it thank you for reminding me!

so for my "TeLes" and perhaps my other tele, I'm thinking I might try making it out of a laminate of some flamed maple and wenge. So far, what I know is that I might want to alternate the end grain. I have some (semi-rough) flamed maple that's 7/8" and some wenge that is finished 4s that is 3/4"... two pieces of flamed maple and one center strip of wenge should get me close enough to 2 3/16" if I'm careful... cutting too close? In terms of prep... how important is perfectly flat here? IE - since you are going to clamp it up... how concerned are you about bow (obviously a big bow would be problems but what about 1/16" bow)? I would normally use my router plane to get a flat fretboard surface... but running this on the two flamed pieces would be a lot of work (plus sanding out the ridges) and am thinking of just running it through my planer a few times. Clearly one has to watch out for obvious defects in the wood (don't want any voids) but other than that... what are the pitfalls of doing a lam neck?

I guess we both come away with something then.

not really nitpicky... just want to know it so I can plan for it. I guess the top on a less paul is usually an arc due to the carve - so at the end of the day I'm likely going to have to sand the bridge ring to match that arc anyway... At the end of the day this thread was really just me working it out. Sometimes committing to writing it down flushes out the understanding... this was one of those times for me. I do appreciate you playing along tho!

a gentleman and scholar.

hehe, yeah, didn't spend a lot of time making it pretty... just trying to see where things will lie. right... the neck pickup ring s/b no angle... I don't know why they put one on. If you are planing the body at the same angle you plane the neck... it should be parallel (doesn't everyone use the sm angle there?) so I have no idea why they would put an angle on that. The bridge... I guess they go 6.75degrees as it should never be more than that.. and you just have to sand it down... but yeah, if you do a 4 degree pitch it needs to be at 4 degrees in theory... I guess since it's just a few degrees it doesn't matter that much, but I have seen some cheap les paul copies where it isn't angled... and we don't want that! thanks for the reply biz

edit edit... ppps... looking online it appears that the typical is that the plane does end halfway between bridge and neck pickup. Can't help but think I'm overlooking something. (usually when I think that I am) so looking at this: and thinking (.383 - .176) = .207....... .207/1.75 using an online degree calc 6.75 degrees? seems extreme. sorry, just thinking out loud here

you are a good muse bizman... I appreciate.

so laying out my geometry for my les paul esque angled neck. it occurs to me that really any angle would work as long as the neck is sunk deep enough into the body to aligh it with the top of the bridge at its lowest. it also occurs to me that the angle cut into the top of the body won't ever actually reach the bridge pickup if that angle is aligned with the bottom of the fretboard. makes me wonder... I think there is an angle to the bridge pickup ring no? anyone know this angle? ideally both pickups should sit on the plane that would be parallel to the strings (in gray below). obviously one can sand down the pickup ring to make an angle. begs the question, what is your approach to mitigating this? hehe, just asuming this pic means anything to anyone but me... the cream is the body with a 7/8" top. the gold is the neck wood and it ends at approx the end of the neck pickup, brown the fretboard 27.5" scale length. the grey area is the plane I would put in the face of the body - removing all material higher than the top edge. the darker grey is a 14mm height gotoh bridge (anyone confirm this height?)

sounds quite nice even on work speakers. good job.

that first one is quite nice... might be a hair too much contrast tho. I think the very first one you posted is a likely winner as it's got some sparkle but will be subtle.

hold my beer...

and just like that I was all out of reactions! cool beans. DEMO... DEMO.... DEMO....... DEMO!

thank you sir. hope you are looking forward to answering stupid questions and providing a shoulder for when the crying starts (hehe).

right on. i was actually thinking of metalflake for a minute... would be pretty cool... but then I'll be picking small flakes out of every nook and cranny for the next year! (you know how that goes!)

right on. that def would be a nice sparkle... not all that pearl tho, but would look nice. have bookmarked it.

that guitar wouldn't look right with waterslide or paint. def going mop there. Just it'd be nice if I don't have to cut it myself as that logo would be tuff to get right. Really want a more classic look, but not sure about cutting it myself. for that reason, may take an easier route depending on what I can find.

I guess in that instance, might be better off dying black after filling grain.

I was more thinking about availability of the inlay. I don't recall where, but I'm sure I've seen std 'gibson' inlay... would be pretty easy to take that and mod it to 'Gipsum' whereas 'Givsum' might require cutting it. If I was cutting myself I could go all the way to "Gig Bum". hehe

truth be told I was playing with my axefx3 for about 6wks straight... quite the distraction. but lately: picture me wringing my hands and plotting world domination via tele build - lol! afa paul caster... more of a teLes but i digress! thanks for the reply AD

black pearl - good call. that's def a winner idea. afa hardware/pearl - kind of commited as already bought. Really wanted to try the trem king and they don't offer it in black chrome. Still wondering how one cleans that filler off the other parts tho... I suppose just light sanding.

thanks for the reply biz. I was thinking it might be really easy with gipsum as I'd be able to splin the b and just cut the top off an o assuming I could find a logo but - "giv sum" - certainly food for thought!

acoustic bridge and semihollow... right on. Did not realize the pickukps were acoustic flavor - interesting. thanks for the answers.

well, if anyone can fix that I trust it would be you. looks very nice. Just noticed how the upper horn bents up... that's a nice detail. Rock on!