Bainzy

It's a tough issue to decide on, did you see the bit in the book where Melvyn says he uses a channel where the bottom of the curve is 1/8" to 3/16" deeper than the highest parts? Even though he was referring to an even channel, that measurement should still apply to a channel where it's flatter towards the body.

Personally, my preferred method is to make a template of the outline of the body shape, and cut out the chamber shapes carefully into that. Cut out the body shape from the blank, place the template over it, draw around the chamber holes and take it off again. Hock out most of the wood with forstner bits, then put the template back on and use a router with a template follower bit to clean up the chambers.

I look forward to using mine, the two fretboard blanks made from it I've got have a fantastic tap tone, really clear and resonant. Plus a pair of matched Cocobolo boards will look the dogs nads on my 6/12 Strat doubleneck project!

Depends what grit I'm using - for a lower grit waterstone such as 240 grit, since I'm grinding the bevel to the right shape I'll use a honing guide, but for general resharpening I find it better to use just my hand to guide the iron over the waterstone - especially on grits like 4000 and 6000 etc. I agree that sharpening is very important in keeping your planes running well, if you think about it a plane is just a holder for a blade, and therefore if your blade is not honed properly then it's not really worth bothering with.

For the face, I use a Stanley #4 plane, which is perfectly suitable for getting an accurate face when honed and used correctly - pretty easy to use once you know what you're doing too. On the underside though, when it's a Gibson headstock that gets gradually thinner towards the end for strength, I think the best method is bandsawing to almost the right shape and sanding with a sanding block to the right shape.

The blades in those aren't particularly cracking, but I picked up the No.5 and after adding a Stanley blade to it (cost a couple of quid on ebay) it's working really well. The sole and sides were flat enough for use, and the rosewood handles and brass fittings were a nice touch too. Although it doesn't feel as rugged as an old Stanley, if you tune it up well it should give you 10 years of use bare minimum. Don't buy one from ebay though, the exact same ones retailing at £25-35 on there are only £11.91 on Amazon.co.uk: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000LFVIX2?tag=...XAE8B0RHWB& Also if you're interested I posted a review of the No.5 Jack plane on the UKGB Forum: http://www.simnettguitars.co.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?t=624

Haha it is! It needs a lot of TLC though, the sole needs to be flattened and the blade needs some WD40 on it - it's not pictured in the plane since I'm having trouble separating it from the cap iron, it's actually rusted so much that it feels like it's welded together. Hopefully when I get a new can of WD40 it should loosen the rust just enough to get a heavy duty screwdriver to loosen it. Failing that, I'll buy another Marples blade and cap iron on ebay, they don't seem that expensive. That Silverline plane isn't as good as the others obviously, but for £6.76 on Amazon it's an absolute steal - the handles are Rosewood, the fixings are brass and the sole and sides are milled pretty flat so it works really well as a jack plane. Obviously the blade that came with it was junk, but I only got it for heavy stock removal (and curiosity), and after fitting a new Stanley blade I got off ebay for a couple of quid it really does it's job well. I'd put it in the same league as a modern Stanley once it's got a new blade.

^ lol I guess I first had the desire partly to use hand planes instead since my grandad left me planes, but the things that really kicked it off were being unable to work on wide boards with the power tools in my price range and being unable to afford much anyway. After actually getting good at using them, even if I did have access to those massive power tools, I'd still stick with my hand planes most of the time since I don't like power tool dust or the prospect of losing fingers. I'm happy with all the planes I've got now, and there's not really anything else I'd need to accomplish a job on a guitar build. Even the cheap Silverline #5 jack plane I picked up on Amazon this week works great with a modern Stanley replacement blade in there, and that was under £3 inc. postage on ebay.

Amen to that - when I really go at sharpening the blades of my Stanley #3 and #4 planes, they can leave the wood with an extremely smooth shiny surface that looks like it's been sanded with 1500 grit sandpaper.

Pretty sure that isn't Madagascan Rosewood, looks like Amazaque/Shedua/Ovangkol to me (whatever it's called, lol). I've heard it's a pretty good tonewood FWIW.

When I first started getting into building guitars, I was quite confident that if I used hand planes I would wreck the job and avoided them like the plague. I had a Stanley #4, a small wooden smoothing plane and a massive wooden jointer plane that I inherited from my grandad who built boats - I had no idea how to really use them or set them up, and spent a while thinking of ways to avoid using planes such as buying a power jointer or building a router thicknessing jig. Now that I've been at it a while, I've since found a Stanley #3 in my other grandad's cellar (along with a quality oilstone), and bought a great Stanley #7 on ebay, and also figured out how to set up planes and sharpen the blades properly with oilstones and waterstones. After making nice long, thin shavings as opposed to leaving dusty scratch marks on the surface of boards, I've had a plane epiphany of sorts, and really enjoy using them now. I love how easier the mess they leave is to clean up, and how much safer they are compared to using powered tools. What do you guys tend to prefer? Relying on power tools for ease of use and setup, or are you more eager to get out a hand plane to get a job done?

The ABR part is slanted on an LP as you've probably seen, with the bass side closer to the tailpiece than the treble side. To place the bridge, measure the scale length from the nut, when you reach the scale length, use that to place the treble side mounting screw, and then slant it on the bass side from there.

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I don't agree with the notion that the symbols will look "dated", Cameron has lived in East Asia for a large part of his life and definately isn't wanting this as some sort of fashion trend. At the end of the day Cameron is pretty happy with the mockup, and we'll work together on finalising the inlay designs - the only reason the symbols are even spaced on the mockup is because that's a .jpg of a different guitar that I cut and pasted onto my mockup to show a general vibe of the idea. The symbols don't necessarily have to be his name, they could say something else that would actually make sense in Chinese, not just phonetically. Bear in mind some people like different inlay designs, some don't, and as long as Cameron is happy then I'm happy.

I've just got the Stew-Mac Les Paul plans drawn from an actual 1959 Les Paul, the peak thickness of the maple top is 5/8", and I think the thickest Gibson have used over the years is 3/4".

I'm going to be building a run of 6 Les Pauls, so many simply because the wood worked out very cheap in bulk (the 4x4 neck timber and body/top all work out to roughly 3m lengths of timber). 2 are going to be for friends, and I'm just charging the basic cost of materials (wood/plastic/paint etc) to cover my costs for doing it, and one of those friends is a guy called Cameron. We've discussed what he wants his LP to look like, and I made a rough mockup: What do you guys think? After seeing Fred Gabrsek's work, we both decided it would be really cool to ebonise the Madagascar Rosewood and write Cameron's name on as the inlay in Chinese symbols and maybe add some other graphic designs. I'm just wondering what to do with the back - the wood will be Sapele (chambered for the body), I guess we could paint it black, cherry red etc, but I'd rather like to do a natural or brown finish on it; I'm wondering what you guys would do with it. Also, what about the headstock? We could have Cameron's name in English as the headstock logo in a mock Gibson font, but it'd be nice to put some designs below that too to make the headstock look a bit more interesting. Anything else that might customise the guitar too, I'd like suggestions on that

In theory the harder the glue the more resonance you'll get, so logically the best glue to use is hot hide glue... ...but I've never tested the difference and I doubt anyone ever will. I favour hide glue since it dries clear, very strong, and most importantly because it allows you to separate the joint later on - that's why they still use it in violin making. For high end acoustic guitar making and piano making, hide glue seems to be a must, and it was used to join vintage Strats and Les Pauls, but by no means would I ever consider thinking anything less of a joint made with Titebond. My advice would be to try a variety of stuff, and stick with what you think works best for your projects.

That's good to hear - I only get chance to build at the weekend once every 2 or 3 weeks since I'm at Uni most of the time, so there's not much problem with waiting that long to use it. It's 120 inches (3m) long by 4 inches square and it's destined for 6 (one piece) Les Paul necks, so I'll probably get it cut up into 3 equal lengths tommorrow and sticker/pile the boards in my bedroom until I get chance to use them - it's a bit cumbersome in its current length.

If you ordered wood such as Sapele from a supplier, and it was at 10% moisture content, how long would you leave it indoors before working on it?

What height would you need for the fingerboard binding, if you were gonna include the little nibs on the ends of the frets?

Like I said in the first post, I'm after both - I've got 6 Les Pauls to build, and 2 of which I'm building to historically accurate 50's spec for my own personal collection - hence the need for 4 Madagascan boards and 2 Brazilian. I'm doing at least 2 for some of my best friends, but I don't think they really care what wood it is, as long as its Rosewood of some variety. I might dye the Madagascan boards to make them look a bit more like Brazilian, but I'll ultimately leave that decision up to my mates.

Managed to find a supplier for 4 Madagascar RW blanks at $7.50 each, once they arrive I'll post seller details and feedback.

In that case, PM on it's way

Do you have any uncut? I may find use for some 25.5" boards at some point, but the scale I had in mind right now was Les Paul scale (24 5/8")

I'm after a few Madagascar Rosewood electric guitar size blanks, probably about 4. I'm also interested in Brazilian Rosewood blanks if anyone has any for offer. Darker woods preferred, basically as dark as possible but I'm up for considering anything - just send me a PM. Since I'm looking for a few, I don't mind having to resaw a thick block to get the quantity needed. I'm not particuarly fussed about grain orientation, but may be willing to pay a bit extra for quartersawn. regards, Richard

It actually makes the neck feel so much more comfortable than you expect - I've done it on a Warmoth neck after buying it, and my Fender Strat (american series) came that way. From the feel of the Fender's neck, it feels like they made the neck a little wider than usual, and used this extra width to help shape the rounded edges - thus avoiding having to make the fretboard thinner.