Neck photos

This is gluing on the heel block. I didn't have enough neck wood to make a heel block , so used some from the body for the tenon.
The mahogany is not the same hardness between woods.


Testing out the truss rod routing. This is a StewMac Hot Rod truss rod, that goes both directions.


The neck down to a better profile and truss rod installed. Headstock truss rod access also done.


Here are some close ups of the fretted fingerboard before gluing onto the neck. I have some detail glue clean up around some of the binding nibs on the edge of the frets, but this board looks nice up close.







The full fingerboard before glue up.


Getting ready for glue


The caul for gluing on the already fretted board to the neck.


Taping the board onto the neck before clamping... after glue.



Clamping pics.

Body with binding

Long time no posting.
I've been working on the guitar on/off.
Here are some pics of the body with the binding on.

This pic shows the neck pocket mortise. Its not the "long tenon" traditionally used in the Les Paul. The pocket is really tight with the neck, where I can hold the guitar by the neck and the body won't fall off. Might need to make room for some glue!




These next shots are of the body with the binding. Some shots of the cutaway, where you can see the maple under the binding. I'm pretty happy with this for the first guitar. The binding looks a little thin after scraping some places on the corner, but it looks cool anyway.

Body binding channel cut

I started out by cutting with the jig I showed a few threads earlier, and that worked relatively OK, however I could not get into the waist or cutaway with the router.

I also ended up with some uneven spots since the body (which the guide was running against) was not perfectly sanded down.

I used the jig conservatively, afraid to cut the full 1/4 inch and full width of cut. It was good that I did that because it didn't come out as clean as using a router table with special bit.

I switched over to my 1/4" Marples chisel which was razor sharp to clean up the cut down to the mahogany.



The most useful tool for doing the binding was my scraper. Also sharp. If you use the corner, you can get the binding channel pretty clean. I've got a little more fine picking with the chisel to clean this up, but its mostly ready to go.



Here is a pic of the cutaway, which I did entirely by hand. I used a small palm gouge, my 1/4" straight chisel, and my Old Timer pocket knife to get started down to the line, then cleaned up with the scraper again. Only took about a half hour for this part.

Inlays are cut

Hi all,

I thought cutting out the inlays was going to be a pain but it went relatively fast. Last post I had on my blog, I explained how I opted for the 1oz pearl pack from StewMac instead of the precut inlays. Turned out well because now I have 2 whole pieces left over, plus a bunch of smaller scraps for cutting some sort of headstock inlay. Now to get creative and come up with that design...

Here's a pic of the inlays on top of the plan. I used the tracing paper to get the shapes of the plan and transfer the lines to the pearl.
I used a jeweler's saw, I think it took about an hour or so.
The white dust was all over the place though, and I used 3 blades to cut these. I broke all 3.





This was actually a pretty fun job though. Turn on the tunes, and just cut... no power tools.

Do I have enough pearl inlay?

I decided to get my mother of pearl from Stewart-MacDonald
Instead of buying the premade Les Paul inlays that they sell ($40 in white pearl), I bought instead the 1 oz pack of white pearl and a jeweler's saw which looks like a miniature coping saw. I had expected that I would be able to salvage some leftover pearl for some sort of headstock inlay which I would have to custom cut anyway.

So here is the white pearl inlay 1 oz overlaid on the Les Paul plan. I should have enough with one piece left over.
Now to try my hand at cutting pearl.

Figuring out how to route the binding

Some folks over at My Les Paul Forums - Custom Shop asked me how I was going to route the binding now that the top is carved. Good point!!

Anyway, I didn't route the binding first because I bought the wrong height binding, so I didn't want to get started on it, but went ahead with carving anyway.

Well, this jig is what I came up with. Its my router table plexiglass insert clamped to some boards. I'll clamp another standoff underneath the router to control the width of cut of the binding. Hope to get to this in a few days.

Starting the neck

Decided to start working on the neck today.
After the maple top carving, I've gotten over my obsession to make the "perfect Les Paul". I'd been thinking I was going to make a jig to cut the scarf joint neck angle using my table saw, but decided that it wasn't necessary and I'll see if I can freehand it or make a simpler jig for the bandsaw and cut the angle.

Here, I'm using my Indian made Anant jointer plane to square up one of the edges for the neck.




Shavings from the jointer plane... ahhh that's sharp!




I made a practice cut for the neck scarf joint on a wider piece of oak, freehanded on the band saw (no fence). That turned out pretty good. I think it was a 16 or 17 degree angle, so if I wanted to cut it with the mitre slot, I'd have to make a special jig for it.
I decided it was good enough to go ahead and cut the scarf joint for the neck mahogany freehand as well. The cut on the red oak was perfectly reasonable to be cleaned up with a plane, scraper, or sandpaper.




Verifying the cut on the band saw was square.




Here is the neck clamped on the workbench. I did do a practice clamp, but as soon as I put the glue on, I found the scarf wanted to slide under the pressure of the clamps. Need to clamp the neck lengthwise (I used the attachment plywood for my vise to anchor one end, and clamped the neck on the other end too). THEN... clamp the two pieces together so they don't slide.

The top carve

Here is the top after going through several passes with the safe-T planer.

Since this is my first top, I made a few mistakes here, but overall, it feels pretty nice.
The top is not as tall as a Gibson I believe.
This was due to me to ledge and contour with the safe-T planer, so in order to have it flow nicely, the top ended up a little shallower. I also don't have another Les Paul to compare with.

I did have the plans to compare with, but I think that it is pretty difficult to get the contours based on the plan, so a person could go crazy. I ditched the plan and just went by the "art" of it after I was frustrated.

The differences I can tell is that my top is not as tall, and the edges are in further from the edge with deeper dishes.

I wanted some deeper dishes around edge, because I think that is a really cool feature of a Les Paul

Shaping the top

Started shaping the top on Saturday. I am using the Wagner Safe-T planer, which in my opinion is one of the most useful items to have for your shop if you don't have a planer. I think they cost about $45 at www.stewmac.com or www.lmii.com.

Chucked into the drill press, the safety planer allows to thickness freehand by moving the piece. I run the Safe-T planer about 1600 rpm. The tool comes with an oxide wheel that you can chuck into your drill press to sharpen the cutters underneath.

First I went and marked the top in pencil with some rough contouring landmarks and sketching for 1/4", 3/8", 1/2", and then I used the Safe-T planer to start cutting the contours.




A few other folks use methods such as hand-carving the whole top, grinder, sanders, chisels and gouges, or jigs with routers.
This is actually my first time carving the top of a guitar, using hard maple as well as the safe-T planer in this manner.

One thing that helps for the neck angle is that I can tilt the table to 4 degrees and plane down at a specific angle. You can't feed the material from higher side to lower side, you have to take a full sideways cut. In this picture, you have to have the body go from front to back to get the full profile of the angle.




Here is a front pic after some passes at 4 degree angle.
I didn't take it all the way down to spec of 1/4" at the front. I decided to work the rest of the top first.



Here are a few passes using the Safe-T planer for the plateaus.

The maple top

I got a maple board 3/4 thickness from Crosscut Hardwoods.
I picked through and got a plain maple top with some burly, swirly, nice anomalies for $25.
For the first guitar, it beats getting a bookmatched top of flame for > $150. I actually have another half a maple board left that would be good for making some bolt on maple necks with rosewood fingerboards.

I'm not a fan of flame maple anyway. I like the original '59 look of the plain maple tops.

Here is a pic of the band sawed and joined maple top.