Les Paul Guitar

It's been a few years since I finished a Telecaster guitar and the bug to build another guitar was eating away at me. I decided that for this build I would try to build a replica rather than guitar of my own design. I've always loved the look, feel, and sound of the Gibson Les Paul, so this is the guitar that I chose to copy for this build. The Les Paul has been in production since the early 50's and is still in production today. I guess it's a guitar that people like. The most revered model and year is the '59 burst top. This is what I'm going for:

The purpose of this blog is really more for myself to keep track of stuff as I go along. I hope that it can provide useful information to anyone looking for it. This build will be highly mechanized with the use of 3d software and a 3 axis CNC router. I like woodworking, but I also like when things fit together perfectly and require a minimum amount of fitting. I should be able to achieve this with the tools I have.

There are some plans available on the internet for this guitar, but none of the ones that I found (for free) are complete enough to capture all of the intricate details of construction. Using a combination of bits and pieces of plans, .pdf's and other info I was able to get the guitar modeled in Solidworks and create my own set of plans for the build.

There is quite a bit of conflicting info about this guitar. I think this is due to the fact that these guitars were hand built and each one was slightly different. Measurements of non critical features vary pretty widely from one to the other. I get a laugh out of some of the dimensions on the drawings that go down to the tenth of a thousandth of an inch...haha, who works to that precision with wood? Certainly not the employees at the Gibson factory! I took what was available and rounded to reasonable tolerances based on the feature in question. When it's all said and done, I plan to have this guitar look and sound just like the originals did, a few thousands here or there will not make a difference.

Any missing info about this model was just a few searches away and could be found on a couple of popular forums about guitar building. http://www.mylespaul.com/forums/ and http://www.tdpri.com/ are a couple of sites with an abundance of information regarding dimensions, materials and construction techniques. If it were not for these resources, I would still be sitting at the computer staring at pictures trying to figure out what, how, and why.

The design (backwards engineering) took a significant amount of time. I would estimate that I have at least 100hrs into the 3d models. A good portion of this was spent doing the surface model for the top of the guitar. I don't have a real '59 Les Paul to measure the curves from, so the shape is based off pictures and all other info I could find. I was not familiar with surface modeling before doing this, so it was a steep learning curve as I went. I found an example guitar modeled with surfaces in Solidworks provided by DSS so I downloaded it and studied how it was done. This provided a good starting point for modeling the Les Paul. (I will try to find the link to that file...)

Back of Guitar

Front of Guitar

The models and drawings are a work in progress. I find that no matter how much I think about how to layout the parts on drawings and what dimensions to add and from where, There's always something that I forget or a different point from where the dimensions should originate so I'm making the drawings as I go. By the time the guitar is into the finishing stages, I will have a bunch of time to polish the drawings to a point where I'm happy with them. I will not be making any of the cnc files available so please don't ask.

Body - Rev5

So after spending the last few weeks of evenings and weekends working on the design, it's time to get real and spend some money. I buy my guitar parts and some materials from Stewart MacDonald . I've placed a number of orders with them over the years and have always been happy with the pricing, shipping, and quality of the parts.

Buying parts for this guitar was pretty easy. They sell a bunch of parts just for Les Pauls, so it was just a matter of choosing my price point for the quality of parts and ordering. i did this before I had the 3d model totally complete, but plan to enter the part numbers for the 3d modeled parts when the guitar is done. It would be nice to have a 100% complete and accurate bill of materials for this guitar.

Here's what I ordered:


3pcs - Item # 0149 - StewMac Wide Fretwire, Wide/medium, 2 ft
1pcs - Item # 6010-V - Unbleached Bone Nuts, For Gibson, blank
1pcs Item # 2133-LSG - Premium Wiring Kit for Gibson Les Paul Guitar, Long-shaft CTS pots and gold Switchcraft switch
4pcs - Item # 1194-FG - Bell Knob, Gold, for fine-knurled pot shaft (CTS)
20pcs - Item # 3359-G - Humbucker Mounting Ring Screws, Gold
5pcs - Item # 4386-G - Pickup Height Screw for Humbucker, Gold
2pcs - Item # 4397 - Cream Plastic Binding, .090" x .565" (2.29mm x 14.35mm)
1pcs - Item # 4396 - Cream Plastic Binding, .090" x .250" (2.29mm x 6.35mm)
1pcs - Item # 5907 - Cream Plastic Binding, .060" x .250" (1.52mm x 6.35mm)
1pcs - Item # 1051 - Cream Pickguard Material
1pcs - Item # 1037 - Black and White Laminated Pickguard Materials, 3-ply
1pcs - Item # 5685-IP - Pearloid Inlay Set for Gibson® Les Paul® Standard
2pcs - Item # 4981-SBG - StewMac Guitar Strap Button, Ivoroid button, gold screw
1pcs - Item # 1509 - Plastic Mounting Rings For Humbucking Pickups, Low, cream
1pcs - Item # 1510 - Plastic Mounting Rings For Humbucking Pickups, Tall, cream
1pcs - Item # 1058-R - Slotted Fingerboard for Gibson, Rosewood
1pcs - Item # 1955 - Gotoh Keystone-style 3+3 Tuning Machines, Chrome
1pcs - Item # 5428 - Golden Age Parsons Street Hot Humbuckers, Nickel cover with Alnico 2 magnets
1pcs - Item # 5438 - Golden Age Parsons Street Hot Humbuckers, Nickel cover with Alnico 5 magnets
1pcs - Item # 5737 - Gotoh 510 Bridge & Tailpiece, Bridge and tailpiece set, chrome

I see that I made a mistake with the screws that I ordered, they are gold and should be chrome. oh well. no big deal. Originally, I had all of the colored parts in gold, but changed my mind and switched them all to chrome, except the screws I guess. Gold hardware adds about 25% to the cost and is not what was used on the 59 bursts.

I decided to buy the precut fretboard inlays in perloid plastic. This is pretty much what they used on the originals. I since found a number of sources on ebay that I would have bought the same set from mother of pearl for cheaper. Next time. Stew-mac can not ship mother of pearl or abalone to Canada due to the import laws. not sure how this would work on an e-bay purchase...

I also bought a precut fretboard. We will see how this works out. It's not that I don't have access to rosewood, they have a good selection at my local lumber store. If I'm not happy with it, I will just make my own.

Anyways, this list came to about $700CAN. It was a bit more than I was expecting but nothing compared to the total amount of time and effort to make the guitar. 

Next on the list was lumber shopping. I found a guy on e-bay that has a large selection of bookmatched figured maple. After hours of looking and comparing, I bought this set:

The seller calls this 'exhibition grade'. It is very nice and was received in good condition. The maple is not what I'm used to, it seems to be very light and rather soft. The pieces were just over 3/4" which is what's required for this guitar. This set was about $220. Again, for the time and effort that will go into this instrument, the price is not significant. I don't want to complete the project and say to myself 'self - why didn't you use nicer materials?'. I've done this on several guitar builds in the past and it still bothers me when I look at them.  

I bought a bunch of mahogany around Christmas just because my local store had a bunch. It was a good deal at $8/brdft and I bought about 20 brdft. The planks were 2" thick, 60" long and varying widths. Out of the bunch, I really only had one board that would be nice enough for the body so I decided to go back and get a nicer piece. This is the blank I bought:

It's 20" x 48" x 2" thick. This piece has been in the store for many years. I asked them to cut it down, but as expected, they refused. I did get a 25% discount for buying the whole piece and scored it for $350. It will be enough to make at least 2 bodies and 2 necks, so not so bad when I look at it that way.

So the majority of the money has been laid out for the build. There will of course be other smaller purchases such as tools, glues, finishes and other supplies that will be needed as I go along.

Last weekend I decided to cut a test top based on my 3d surface model for the guitar. I don't do alot of 3d CAM stuff with the software I use, so it's always a bit of trial and error to get some output code that looks reasonable. The results were disappointing to say the least. I finished the carve on Friday night at about 10pm. I didn't really feel like trying to figure out what went wrong. The surface was not smooth like the model, was quite faceted and had some deep gouges that would be near impossible to sand out. I did not have good dreams that night.

With a fresh start on Saturday morning, I glued up another maple test blank and bolted it to router again. i sat down with the CAM software again, and after a few hours, I had something that looked much better in the simulation, like night and day better. Off to the router with the new code. This was the result:

I was elated with the result, it was better than expected. The finish off the machine was very smooth, and very accurate to the 3d model, so much so there's a point on the surface that I had pulled up to give a bit of shape just behind where the freboard would be that  you can feel when you rub your hand over, yet it's barely distinguishable by looking at the surface.

I learned a few things from this test:
1. Model better be perfect, or there will be alot of sanding to do. I don't want to modify the shape at all by sanding, just smooth it for finishing. this will ensure exact copies can be made in the future.
2. Setting a sufficient model resolution in the CAM software is important. This is the reason for the poor surface finish on the first test piece.

Here's the second test piece in teh forground compared to the first test piece. Mega difference.

This is about 1/2 way through the finishing pass. I use both a roughing pass and finishing pass. The roughing pass removes most of the material with a regular router bit and leaves material on the surface where it should be so that the finishing pass can clean it off.

I made a few changes to the model after this attempt. The shape needed some slight tweaking in a few places. I also made a flat surface at 4.4deg where the fretboard will bond to the body. It's a slight step up off the surface of the body, but will not be noticeable on the finished guitar.

Here's the 3 tests. I'm happy with the last one, so I guess this mystery is done until I'm ready to do the actual guitar. Good thing...I'm running out of maple to make the blanks from!

Onwards. The body blank has been prepared. I surfaced both sides of the mahogany block on the router to make it flat. I only have a 13" planer and the blank is 14" wide, so this was the only way I could do it. First I surfaced the top of the blank and routed the wire channel in it. Then I flipped the block over, surfaced the back to the final thickness +0.030 for sanding, and routed the switch and control cavity and the cover plate recesses for both. Of course, the cover plate recesses were routed deeper to allow for final sanding. 

Surfacing the top with a 1 1/4" router bit

Wire channel cut - 1/2" x 1/2" deep

Surfacing the back side to a final thickness of 1.780

Cavities and cover plate recesses routed in

I glued the quilted maple to the mahogany with Gorilla glue. I know Gibson did not have Gorilla glue, but there's only some things I'm willing to keep original. Glue technology has come a long way in 60 years and I'm not adverse to using a superior glue. I know some will say that this will affect the sound, but I'm not convinced.

Gluing the maple top set to the body blank

The prepared body blank - ready for shaping

The holes are for bolting the block to the router table. The bolt heads are sunk in deep enough that they are well out of the way when the top gets carved. One hole is a bit too close for comfort for cutting the body out with a 1/2" router bit, so I will remove it before I do this and put a clamp on that corner instead.

Next on to the neck blank. I used some of the mahogany that I bought around christmas to make up the blank. The piece chosen looks to be about the same density as the body and is pretty much quarter sawn. The grain is very strait and there are no defects. Should make a nice strong neck.Too bad the board wasnt an inch wider, I would have got 2 necks out of it.

Rough blank glued up

I'm not sure if this is how the neck was glued up on the originals. Regardless, this was my only option. Because of the way the headsotck is constructed, only the back of the neck is visible from this blank of wood. I'm confident that the glue line will be barely noticeable. 

16 June 2015

After setting up for the night, the blank was jointed on one side then sawed and planed down to 2.250" exactly. Thickness planing is something that I can do to the .001" with ease, so I try to be exact each time. It removes any guess work down the road.

Aligned and clamped to router table

 I did up the g-code to do the entire side profile in a single continuous path. The router bit shown has a 2 1/2" DOC, the longest bit I have. I stepped down in 1/8" increments. No sense rushing, I'm not in a production environment here.

Freshly cut neck blank

The routing worked out well until the last path. I broke a rule of my own by having the standoff  spacer not bolted down. (the black pieces of plastic) When the router bit started into the plastic, it moved and caused a gouge in the front face of the headsotck. I paused the program quick enough to prevent any further damage. I hate when things like that happen, but luckily, the front of the headstock is covered with a 0.04" thick of holly veneer, so this 'whoops' will be covered up.

Backside of freshly cut neck blank

It took about 15mins to cut it out. I also cut the heel angle on this side while it was still bolted to the table. This is a critical joint in terms of the angle to the body as well as the placement on the neck. I can be sure that it is in the exact position. Cutting the angle on the other side will require flipping the neck blank over, and aligning the router to the desired location. This is a bit tricky, but I got it cut in the correct position.

Heel angle cut

Next step was to cut the truss rod slot in the face of the neck. I had to do some research here because I couldn't believe what I was seeing, but indeed, the truss rod cavity is strait. (It's called a compression rod. It works by compressing the neck. Since the neck is thinner near the back, this compresses easier and will straiten out the bow put on the neck from the string force....go figure) Without the headsotck ears glued on, it was just a matter of setting up the tablesaw to the correct depth of cut and centereing the cut on the center line of the neck. After this first cut was make, I moved the fence slightly then cut again, then flipped the blank end for end and cut the other way. This ensures that the slot is directly in the center of the neck blank. I repeated this a few times until the slot was exactly 0.188", the diameter of the soon to be truss rod.

I cut a few little strips and glued the ears onto the sides of the headstock. 

17 June 2015

The truss rod is pretty simple. Just a 3/16" rod with some 10-32 threads on one end and an anchor on the other end. I cut the rod to length (18 5/16") and set it up in the lathe. I used the tailstock die holder to put 1" of threads on the one end. This took about 1 minute. I found a chunk of brass in the short material bin and turned it down to .361"OD. I then setup the spin indexer on the mill and hexed the piece making sure a 5/16" socket is a good fit. I drilled and tapped it 10-32 then put the angle on it and parted it off. It's a cute little nut...

I've seen on a few of the forums a special boring bit with a 3/16" hole in it. A dummy truss rod is clamped into the cavity and the bit uses the rod as a guide, cutting a perfect relief for the truss rod nut. Great idea. This is a PITA to set up in the drill press. I was going to make the bit, but then I found this 9/16" annular cutter in my drill drawer. Problem with these is that they have 3/4" shanks and I don't have any drill chucks that open that big, so I decided to turn the shank down to 1/2". I've done this with other hardened tools in the past, but this cutter was particularly hard. It took a good hour to get it turned down, even after an attempt (fail) at annealing the shank end. I could only take about .002" per pass reliably. I probably could have made the special cutter faster than modifying this cutter. Oh well. I also had to make a sleeve for the 3/16" rod since the through hole on the cutter is 1/4". All in all, it worked like a charm.

Annular cutter used to cut the truss rod nut cavity

Last thing to make was the little moon shaped washer. I milled a step into a piece of 5/8" round bar, sawed it off in the metal bandsaw, then drilled a hole in the correct location. 

Rod and washer installed

Tail end of truss rod. 3/8" anchor fits tight in the hole.

That's enough for tonite. Quit before any mistakes are made...

18 June 2015

The work for tonite consisted of making the piece of headstock veneer and the fillet for the truss rod cavity. I wanted to have these glued on to the neck before hanging up the hat for the night. Mainly because the gouge out of the front of the headstock is bothering me!

Neck parts

 I cut a piece of maple and resawed it on the bandsaw to about .08" thick. I then sent it through the planner taking very light cuts until the veneer measured .055 thick. (the piece is 3 1/2" x 7" x 0.055 thick) To plane something this thin, I have to setup a piece of UHMW plastic on the planer table, and run the work through on top of this. It usually works out pretty well if the grain is cooperating. When the piece gets thin like this, opposing grain can explode in the planer and nothing comes out the other end. I kept this in mind before resawing the piece from the larger piece of maple. Gibson used holly for this veneer, but I've never even seen holly at my local lumber store, so too bad, it's maple. The only bit of this piece that is seen on the finished guitar is the thickness of it from the side of the neck. The front is painted black and encased in lacquer.

Quarter sawn truss rod fillet from maple

The fillet for the truss rod channel is also maple, cut and planed to be a tight fit in the channel. I was also careful to make sure the fillet is quarter sawn. This may seem like a small piece of wood, but it will add significant stiffness to the neck when installed. Having it quarter sawn add that extra rigidity.

Headstock veneer from maple

I cut 2 pieces of veneer just in case there was an accident. The top one is done, ready for bonding with the front of the headstock. The piece on the bottom shows the little pieces of double sided tape I put on to stick it to the router table. It doesn't take much to hold it in place, and if I use too much tape, I will never peel the piece off the table. Even these little squares were difficult enough to break free after milling. I haven't decided on any inlay for the headstock yet, so I will leave this until the neck is pretty much ready to attach to the body.

Routing the headstock veneer

I decided to cut out the headsotck shape and tuner hole locations on the 2nd piece. The outline is cut 0.030 large so that I could use it on another neck. The tuner hole diameters are cut undersized.

Fillet glued in

The two pieces of truss rod fillet have been glued in. I clamped them down tight and made sure that the neck was strait. I also made sure that there would be no glue inside the truss rod cavity. I applied glue to the fillet only making sure that there was none on the bottom side. It's important that the rod is allowed to compress the wood without having to break a glue bond between it and the neck.  I have also seen builders put drinking straws around the truss rod before installation, not a bad idea, but just seems wrong to be putting a one cent straw inside a high end guitar...

And trimmed

Truss rod fillets have been trimmed flush with the rest of the neck. A hand plane and scraper does the job for the top of the neck, and a sharp chisel for the angled part.

Bonding the veneer to the face of the headstock

 Here's the veneer being bonded to the face of the headstock. Before doing this, I gave the face a light sanding with 150g sandpaper and sanded the back of the headstock flat and smooth. I got the headsotck a bit thin at the head end. With the veneer, it measures .525 thick and should be .565. I will take this into account for the next one and leave a little more material at the routing stage.

Did I mention that wherever possible I try to use this chunk of granite counter top as a clamping surface? I built this shop cart years ago just to incorporate this chunk of granite that my sister gave me. It's nice to have a dead flat and solid surface for gluing. Normally, I use it for measuring and marking with a height gauge.

And bonded

And here it is bonded. I plan on cutting the shape of the headstock and tuner holes on the router with the face down on the router table. I will have to build a jig to hold the neck for this operation. After this is done, I plan on gluing the fretboard to the top face and then routing the front profile of the neck from the top and then the binding channel along the sides of the fretboard. This is not really the traditional way of doing this, but will work the best for my situation. If I design the jig properly, it will be useful for both of these operations.

Neat and tidy cavity opening

Just a little bit of glue squeeze out. I really like how this veneer cleans up the truss rod access hole. This has always been a bit of a messy point on my previous guitars. 

June 19 2015

After looking closely at the neck and body for this guitar, I was unsure about how the 2 different mahoganys were going to match up. They are fairly close in color, but the grain is bigger on the prepared neck blank than on the body. I decided to cut up the rest of the mahogany that I had. I cut out another body blank and was able to get 2 neck blanks. Now I know that for sure they will match up. So Saturday, I went through the same motions as the first neck, although I bandsawed the neck blanks close to size before routing the profile on the router. This worked out much better. 

Starting with the blank roughed out to size is better for routing

Here's a pic I missed first time around, the necks had the truss rod slot cut with the tablesaw.

Truss rod slots cut

 After this, I followed the same procedure with cutting and installing the truss rod the fillet, making the maple veneer for the headstock and gluing it on. Finally, after a bunch of deliberation, I decided to cut the shape of the neck on the bandsaw rather cut it out on the cnc router. If I were making more than a couple, I may consider it, but for 3 necks, I can do them faster by hand. I simply marked the back of the headstock using the headstock template that I cut out higher up on this page, then maked the tennon and fretboard angles. 5 minutes at the bandsaw and it was all cut out. After that, a coarse file and a few snading blocks was all that I needed to do the final shaping. This mahogany is really nice to work with. It sands like a dream and is very easy to shape. That being said, it has to be handled gently from now on. I don't want to have to fix any dings before final sanding.

Headstock almost shaped

 I will leave the tenon alone until the body is cutout. It wont take much to make it fit properly.

Tennon roughed out

If you notice, I cheated a bit. I angled the neck tenon. The originals had a strait tenon on the neck, and angled the tenon slot in the body. I personally don't see how one is any better than the other. there's still a ton of meat here, regardless of how it's joined. This way, I don't need 3d g-code for the router, or need to angle the body just to route the neck joint. Cosmetically, there's no way to tell that this was done after the neck and body are joined.

Three neck blanks

I'm as far as I can go with the neck for now. I want to finish the fretboard and glue it on before I do any shaping on the back of the neck.

Finally, I mixed up some aniline dye that I'm going to do some testing with. I mixed 1tsp of dye to 60ml of alcohol. Hows that for mixing units? Based on past experiences, I think that will be enough to saturate the alcohol. Some things to keep in mind:

1. These are water based aniline dyes yet they dissolve in alcohol with no problem. 
2. Methyl Hydrate IS denatured alcohol.
3. The alcohol/dye solution can be mixed with lacquer with no problem. 
4. The alcohol/dye solution can be mixed with acetone.
5. The dyes cannot be directly mixed with acetone!
6. Acetone can be used to clean up tools that have sprayed lacquer.

These are the colors I have mixed up:

• Honeytone amber
• Dark red
• Dark Walnut
• Lemon yellow

If you live in Canada, you can get all the colors you need from Lee Valley Tools. Basic colors, and wood colors. Just as a side note, if you are into anodizing aluminum, these dyes can be used for that also.

I'm not exactly sure what color of burst I want yet, but it will be the combination of these colors. The base color coat of lacquer will likely be a light orange color. This will get sprayed over the entire top and back of the guitar, everything but the face of the headstock and the fret board. The burst will happen after this. I'm leaning towards a fade from orange to red to dark brown outer edge. Maybe something like this:

Honey Burst?

I found all the parts to my Badger air brush the other day and got it back together and working. Doing the burst with this little air brush should work pretty good. It sprays very nice and can spray a good volume of lacquer pretty quick. These bursts are usually sprayed within a few minutes. Just a few quick shots around the body with the gun facing towards the outer edge and it's all done. For building up the clear lacquer coats, I have a little spray gun that will work just right.

I want to start testing with the bursts this week. I will strain the dyes to leave behind any residue from the aniline crystals. The first test I did with tinting lacquer, I didn't filter the dye solution and you could see tiny specks of the stuff that should have been strained out. The tinted lacquer should be crystal clear. Think of it like a colored glass...

June 29th

I've been busy with paid work for the last week or so and haven't done a bunch on the guitar. I have been able to draw up a few more parts and add them to the 3d model. I have also played around a bit more with the method of finishing the back of the guitar. More on this later.

Last night I had a free evening, so I decided to work on the fretboard. I did the crown inlays that I got from stew-mac and cut the fretboard to final size on the cnc router.

Machining the inlays in the fretboard

My setup for holding the fretboad was adequate, but not ideal. Clamping down the entire length of each side would have been better. The depth of the inlay cavities varied a bit.

Cutting the fretboard to size

 To cut the taper, I removed the clamp that was in the way and did one side at a time. When the sides were done, I added both side clamps back and cut the board to length.

The roughed out freboard

The roughed out fretboard. The width of the board is cut exactly to the correct width taking into account the 0.033" wide binding that will be glued to both sides and the end.

Inlays dry fit

I cut the inlay slots with a 1/16" single flute end mill from Harvey Tools. (Great stuff btw...) I few minutes with a sharp chisel and I had the corners of the cavities sharp to match the inlays. They were a perfect fit if I do say so myself. I didn't touch the inlays whatsoever, and only needed to sharpen the inside corners of the cavities. I guess I measured them correctly. In the above photo, you can see the machining marks to the fretboard from putting the radius on it. This is the way it was recieved from stew-mac, and this is perfect. The board thickness is just slightly more than required (about .02") and this will be taken off during final sanding after the inlays are glued in and the binding applied.

One thing to note is that the inlays are not in the center of the frets. I'm still trying to figure out what went wrong here. Either the machine had a hickup, or I forgot to zero the y axis to the nut location. If I had another board, I would probably scrap this one for now. This was another reason that I should have just cut the slots myself in the board. Everything would have been in proper location to each other. Next time... Only a keen eye will notice this mistake.

Add caption

 Binding the fretboard will happen soon, then I will be able to glue it to the neck.

5min Epoxy spread in inlay cavities

I glued the inlays in with 5min epoxy. This is not period for a 59 Les Paul, but like I said earlier, I'm not all that interested in keeping it period correct if I have to use something that I know is inferior. It was a warm night, so the 5min epoxy set in about 3 mins. I had to work fast to spread the glue, set the inlay, then clamp.

30 June 2015
Tonite, I would bind the sides of the fretboard and do somemore work on the 3d model in preparation for carving the body on July 1st. Canada Day and a civic holiday.

There's a number of glues that can be used for this plastic binding but I have read a few places that some of the binding mixed with acetone makes a great glue. I cut up a bunch of tiny strips of binding, put them in a glass jar and added a equal amount of acetone. In about an hour the binding was fully dissolved and all it needed was a stir to make it a glue-like consistency.

Here I have the fretboard clamped to the table. The less I have to do after spreading the glue, the better. My method here was to spread the glue onto the sides of the freboard, then use the same brush and spread acetone onto the binding. Align then clamp. Done. I put a thin strip of wood under the fretboard so that the binding would extend past the bottom and top of the board to allow trimming when dry. I should have also used wax paper between everything that the glue may have touched. It's very sticky and dries to a hard bond, even to the granite table.

There's really no rush when using this binding/acetone mixture. if it dries before you are ready, just spread a bit of acetone on it, and instantly it's ready for action. If the binding didn't adhere properly, just drop a bit of acetone in the affected area and clamp.

If sufficient acetone/glue was used, you can see the binding squeeze into the fret slots like the above picture. There is also no excuse to have any gaps between the binding and the wood you are gluing it to. 

After drying overnight (it seemed to take forever to dy, may have something to do with the rosewood fretboard), I used a cabinet scraper to level the binding to the bottom of the fretboard. I did the same on top, but didn't take any pictures.

July 1, 2015
Happy Holidays! After staying up till 2am working on the 3d model, I was able to get the bridge/tailpiece and nut modeled in. I was also able to model in each string to make sure all this stuff was going to work. Low and behold it's all good. I confirmed all the critical dims on the model and made sure my .dxf file was ready for today.

I mounted the maple/mahog sandwich back on the router and was careful to dial it all in.

First thing I did was route the profile + 1/4" all around to a depth of 7/8". This would give some relief for the ball nose carving bit.

Next was to do the roughing pass with the same 1/2" router bit.

And finally, the finishing pass with the 3/8" ball nose router bit. For the cnc guys out there, I have the program set to raster in the x direction with 0.04" increment per pass. I chose the x direction for 2 reasons: 1. Rather than move the entire gantry 450 times up and donw the table, I'm only moving the router carriage. 2. When it comes to sanding, I think it will be easier to see when the marks perpendicular to the grain are gone compared to if the marks run with the grain.

Finishing Pass almost done

I didn't really take any pictures during the rest of the machining but these were the programs that I ran:

1. Binding channel
2. Neck mortise
3. Pickup cavities
4. Tailpiece holes
5. Bridge holes
6. Switch hole
7. Control holes
8. Cutout

Major disaster on the very first program. I didn't have my rapid z height high enough, and the very first rapid move to get to the start of the binding channel had the router bit atempt to cut a slot across the entire face of the guitar! I was able to e-stop the machine quickly, but it still for about 3/4" into the top. I felt sick to my stomach. This might be a game changer from a nicely bursted quilted maple top to a painted guitar.

Regardless of the error, the carve worked out perfectly. Check out those sexy curves!

Sexy curves

Next was to tackle the binding. The binding I ordered from stew-mac was pretty wide to accomodate the thickness between the horn and neck. I ripped the piece of binding in half except for the short length in this area. There's enough to do another top left over.

Forming this binding is very easy when you get it to the correct temp. For me, it's when it's just slightly too hot to handle without gloves. I tried a hair dryer first, but it did not get hot enough. I found my heat gun and used it on high and it didnt take more than 10 seconds to turn the plastic very plastic. I worked the binding from the horn aroundt he body and taped it in place while warm so that it would remember the shape.

Binding dry fit

This is another thing you can take your time with. Heat, bend, hold. Repeat if necessary. The better the fit you have while dry, the better the whole job will go.

Binding dry fit

Same as the neck, I would brush the glue into the binding cavity, about 8" at a time, then wet the binding with acetone and stick the binding into the cavity and tape tightly. I had a small amount of melted binding squeeze out all around the guitar body when complete meaning it was a solid bond with the guitar.

Binding glued in

For some reason, this binding was dry within an hour compared to the freboard binding which seemed to stay soft for hours. Maybe the freshly machined wood alled the acetone to escape faster? Just a thought.

Any idea where the patch is?

So while this was drying, I started to look for a patch for the whoops earlier. I studied the grain direction and the curliness of the cavity and found a few close matches on the wood that was left over. I cut a few patches and closely shaped them . I ended up going with the one below. The color and grain matches pretty closely, but the curliness is slightly off direction. I'm not sure if this will stick out like a sore thumb later or not. I guess I will find out soon enough. From more than a few feet away, you can't see the patch at all.

Can you see it now?

After about 5 minutes at the disk sander, the neck tenon was shaped to size. It's a good fit, not to tight, not too loose. I have to push hard to get it seated, but it will come out with a bit of wiggling. The neck heel still needs a bit of work for a nice flush fit all around with the body, but I want to scrape the binding flush and sand the top of the guitar before making the final adjustments.

All in all, it was a good Canada Day!

June 2nd 2015

Today I scraped the body binding flush and sanded the sides and top to 150g. Although the side of the binding were only sticking out .020", there was alot of binding to scrape off. I actually don't mind this job. A nice sharp cabinet scraper does the trick well. 

You may think that because this was cutout with a cnc router that there would be minimal sanding required on the sides, but this isn't the case. I started with 80g, yes 80g. I was surprised I even had paper that coarse in my shop. The roughness of the outline is directly related to how many breaks are in the digital spline. Mine has 4 breaks, and at each of these the cutout is a bit rough. This is much better than the telecaster outline I have which is very rough all the way around. For the next LP body, I think I will try to make a single spline for the cutout. 

Anyways, the sides are sanded with sanding blocks only, one flat and one with a radius. This ensures that there is no weirdness to the sides. After going through all the grits up to 150, all the curves are very fair and smooth. I will finish sand up to 320 just before finishing. There's still some work to do on the body, so no sense going that far at this point.

For the top, I started with 120g and sanded up to 180g. It's a pretty easy chore. The maple is soft and the profile is pretty smooth right off the router, so there's not much sanding to do. I just removed the machining marks with the 120 paper, then sanded normally up to 180g, removing the scratches from the previous grits. I don't need to change the resolution in the 3d carving. Making it any smoother would just be a waste of time.

So for the body, here's what's left to do:

• Jack hole cavity - 1" forstner bit into the control cavity
• Ground wire hole from the control cavity to the tailpiece bushing
• Rear Strap hole and pilot for front strap hole

For the neck:

• Fit neck joint
• Fret fingerboard
• Glue fingerboard to neck
• Shape back of neck
• Spray headstock veneer black
• Inlay logo in headstock
• Serial number on back of headstock
• Drill tuner holes
• Glue neck to body

Sounds like alot, but it's probably only a 5-6 hours of work. Unfortunately, I have a bunch of paid work to do next week which will put this on the back burner for a few days. Hopefully by the end of next week I will have this all done.

July 10/11 2015

Like many of my projects, I have a sub project to complete before getting any further with the guitar. I designed and built a fret wire radius tool. I've never had one of these and although you can bend the wire easily by hand, it lacks the very smooth and exact fretboard radius required. It's possible to have small kinks in the handbent stuff that a) looks noticeable even after all the fretwork is done and b) requires a ton of fret leveling and crowning to correct. For this reason, I decided to build this unit.

Assembled - Crank Side View

Assembled - Side View

Assembled - Front View

Parts - Ready for Assembly

 i wont go in depth on this, as it's a bit of a stray from the main post, but here's some notes:

Main material is 1/2" aluminum plate. Since I have my annodizing rig back up and running, these were annodized and colored with dark walnut aniline dye. I think I got the concentration a bit heavy, as just a minute in the dye and the pieces are almost black! Kind of a nice color anyways. Bearings are 6702 skate bearings, cheap and abundant on e-bay. Thumb wheels and main roller and naval 436 brass. Machined steel parts are made from 12L14 - my favorite steel grade for threaded bits... Anyways, this took about 8 hrs of shop time and about 2 hrs of design time. It works like a charm and will last a lifetime and then some. It's range is from infinity to 1" radius.

The companion tool to this is the fret press, so I whipped one of these up before coffee on Saturday morning.

Fret Press

The blade is 1/4" aluminum and the shank and pin are 12L14 steel. I used e-clips to secure the pin to keep the design clean. This also works like a charm in the milling machine collet.

So, with these 2 tools ready, I was ready to fret the fingerboard. I rolled a few lengths of fret wire and started on my way. With the wire rolled to exactly 12" radius, it was a pretty easy job. Mark, cut, nip, file, press, repeat. 22 times. I enjoy doing this, nice job for a hot saturday morning.

Finger board sanded and ready for fretting

 First thing to do was finish sand the fretboard. I sanded up to 320 only. I have, in the past, sanded way beyond this, but realistically 320 is more than enough. After this, I gave it a quick coat of Tung oil, mainly because it's the only oil I have laying around other than motor and cutting oils.

File the tang flush

 There's really nothing scientific about this process. I just held the length of fretwire up to the fretslot to do, marked the overall length and how far back the tang should be nipped. After nupping the tang, I clamped the piece of fretwire in the soft jaws of the vice and filed the tang flush with the under side of the fret crown.

Pressing the frets in

 Pressing the frets in with the simple tool was a pleasure. One good pull on the mill handle had the fret perfectly seated. So much better than using a hammer!

Superior installation!

 Each fret was perfectly seated the first time. There's no need to over radius the fretwire when installing this way.

Trimming the fret ends

Finally, the frets were trimmed by gently filing until they were flush with the binding.

Next task was to mark and drill for the side markers. nothing special here. Just mark and drill on the milling machine. The Stew-mac plans for this guitar call for 3/16" tortoise shell inlays. I don't have any of this or any abalone, so I cut the dots from some mother of pearl using the cnc router and a 0.030" end mill. I know this is not period, but hey... I also cant really see how they could fit a 3/16" dot on the side of the fingerboard. The 1/8" dots come very close to the side of the binding.I cut the dots, but decided to wait until the final neck shaping before installing them, and I was glad I did. More on that below.

Mother of Pearl side dot markers

 With the fret board done, it was time to glue the board to the neck. For any future builds, I will definitely do a few things different:

1. Make a radius clamping caul. This will help to get even pressure on the fingerboard all the way down the length of the neck.
2. Add some hidden dowels between the fretboard and neck blank to secure the board in place during gluing to prevent it from sliding around.

These were both things I had read about and though about but didn't do. Forsure for next time.

So anyways, I overcame the above by adding lots of clamps and making a bunch of tiny wedges to jam in between the frets and the clamping board. It worked out OK, but the glue line could have been more invisible than it turned out. Hopefully the dark red dye will work in my favor.

I used 'Old Brown Glue' for for this task. It's a liquid hide glue. This is more or less vintage for these guitars. I decided against Gorilla or yellow wood glue just because if this fretboard ever needs to come off, someone will thank me for using this type of glue.

The rest of saturday was spent sweating around the shop, doing yard work, and drinking near beer in the back yard. When it cooled off later in the evening, i returned to the shop and finish sanded the body up to 320g. A nice relaxing job to round off the day.

July 12

Big ambitions for the day.

• Headstock logo, mother of pearl and headstock cavity
• Shape neck, finish sand
• Fit neck joint
• Marry the neck to the body

I started the day by filing more off each side of the fretboard to match the width of the neck it was glued onto. Not sure what I was thinking here, but the binding I used was wider than what I had allowed for in my plans, and instead of thinning the binding before fretting and gluing to the neck, I now had to thin it while installed on the neck. Not a huge deal, just would have been easier to to before fretting. 

Onto shaping the neck. This is by far my favorite part of making any guitar. I have used spokeshaves for decades now, and nothing can beat the feeling of a sharp spokeshave singing through the stroke. I have several, but my favorite one is a double blade Stanley with both a concave curve as well as a flat blade. I have also made a few spokeshaves and like the wood ones due to how light they are, and how slippery they are on the work piece. 

Centerline and initial curves marked on neck

 First thing to do ws to layout the shape to carve. The centerline needs to be visible until the final sanding. Remember, this line was CNC cut on the router to the exact thickness required. At the neck end, I leave the transitions short of the ears to start with. After the back of the neck is pretty much shaped, then I finish this transition up to the tip of the ears.

Heel shape and side curves marked

 The heel is marked out the same way.

Heel rough shaped

 Then the shaping begins. I start with a handfull of rasps, and use the one that's most aggresive without chattering or tearing the wood. I take my time doing this. I shape the headstock area the same way, close to the lines that are marked on the neck, then use the spoke shaves to remove the wood between the heel and headstock.

Headstock end rough shaped

 After the neck is pretty much shaped, I finish the transition to the tip of th ears using one of these micro spokeshaves. They work well for what they are.

Final transition done using micro spokeshave

 Following the shaping, sanding start with 150g paper and moves up to 320 all over the neck.

Dots glued in with epoxy

Because the binding blends into the curvature of the back of the neck, i decided to wait until now to install the previously cut side dots. I'm blad I did, or they would have been mostly filed and sanded away by now, what with the binding thinning required.

Logo time. I did up a special logo for this guitar that resembles the letting that Gibson used, but decided against it. I don't really like the style for my short last name. i decided to go with my standard logo. It was another hot day, so escaping to the basement to router this out was a welcome relief. 

Freshly cut

 First and foremost when preparing to cut this logo, I was sure to get the 'phase' correct. By this I mean that if you tilt MOP at a light, it will reflect at different angles. The last guitar I make, I had the 'B' out of 'phase' with the 'ohn'. The effect is you can either see the B or the ohn, but not both, not the way it should be. I studied my small supply of blanks and found a nice match between 2 of them for both figure, color, and phase. (It's not possible to see this with cell phone pictures)

My logo - mother of pearl

 To cut this out, I simply use double sided tape to stick the MOP blank to the surface of the router table and cut. I take .010" depth of cuts and use a .030" end mill with the router on medium speed. The results are excellent. Plunges are done at 3ipm and feed rate is set at 8ipm.

An assortment of MOP blanks

I'm going to need more of this, but Stew-mac can't ship shell products to Canada anymore, so I will have to find a Canadian distributor. Would be nice to find a Canadian distributor for all guitar making supplies. If you know of a good one drop me a line.

Creative clamping

Routing the inlay cavity

Now for the inlay cavity. I simply mark my 0,0,0 point on the face of the headstock, clamp it securely and let the program run. Again, the results are fantastic for these small detailed items. I should have done a test first, I would have tightened up the cavity, but it's only loose by a few thousands of an inch, so pretty decent anyways.

Decent logo fit

So crisp!

The last thing to do before attaching the neck to the body was drill the tuner holes. I have Gotoh 510 keystone style tuners for this guitar (although I have some more vintage ones coming). I used a 25/64" brad point bit in the drill press with a maple backer and let her rip. I marked and drilled the holes from the backside. Worked well.

Now for gluing the inlay into the cavity. Gibson tinted epoxy black to do this, then dyed the holly veneer black. The result was a pretty much seamless matching between the fill and the dyed wood. I would do the same. I've never tinted epoxy before so I tried a few things:

• Try mixing aniline dye directly with the epoxy - fail. Epoxy is obviously not a solvent for the dye.
• Try mixing alcohol dissolved dye with epoxy. This worked well and made the epoxy jet black, but it didn't dry properly. Hey, at least now I know how to make rubber!
• I've heard that printer toner works, but I didn't want to rip apart a toner cartridge to get a gram of toner.
• So what else is available, very fine, and jet black? How about charcoal? Since I didn't have any, I simply scorched a piece of maple with a torch and scraped off the burnt powder. This worked well, dyed the epoxy jet black, and dried hard, so charcoal was it.

This is from build #3, but they all looked this good after leveling the inlay, I would use the dark epoxy even if the headstock was not going to be dyed black.

I mixed up a small batch, filled the inlay cavity and pressed in the logo, being careful to try to center it in the cavity. I will level it off when it has cured for a day or two.

Update - I never really mentioned anything about dying the headstock veneer - so these it is. I mixed up the darkest concentration of black dye I could by first measuring out a 1/4tsp of black dye then adding a few drops of alcohol at a time to it then mixing. The idea was to have residue left over ensuring that the mixture was fully saturated. I used a small foam brush to apply the dye to the headstock, this was a bit on an error, as the foam tended to curl over the top edge and stained the end grain. Not a big deal, but something to be aware of. This process worked remarkably well and blended with the charcoal epoxy around the inlay perfectly. You can't see the transition at all even up close. Just keep applying the black dye until the wood doesn't get any blacker.

Dyed headstock with 1 coat of lacquer applied - seamless MOP inlay

Starting to look like a guitar!

After spending an hour or so getting the neck joint as good as I could get it without going insane (not perfect by my standards), I glued the neck into the body. I used yellow wood glue for this. Not historically correct, but I know for sure that it will be a strong joint. The mating between the neck and body were a good fit and required little effort to press the two together. I wet both the tenon and mortise, applied and spread the glue and clamped together. There was a small amount of squeeze out all around the joint, so I was happy about that. I wiped the excess with a wet cloth to ensure that there was none that would dry and screw up my later dye job on the mahogany. I could only get 2 clamps on the joint, but it didn't need anymore.

All in all, it was a productive weekend. Now, with an upcoming family reunion and a week at the lake, this will probably sit until the last week in July before I get to the finishing stages. Ho hum...

27 July

I was able to apply the grain filler before leaving for a week, so it had a nice long time to dry while I was away. I see why others have said that they don't like this part of the project. It IS messy! I was up in the air about the proper sequence to do these steps, should I seal then fill? Stain, seal fill? Fill, stain, seal? I finally just tinted the grain filler and filled the raw wood.

First step was to mask the guitar. I didn't want to get any of the filler on the face of the guitar. I made an error by not covering the holes through the body before masking. After grain filling and sanding, there was some of the filler that was inside the masking and stained the top a bit. I was able to sand it out, so disaster averted, but 2 pieces of tape could have avoided this.

Masked for grain filling

I didn't bother masking the binding around the body, as it would have made sanding the filler off more difficult. The stain in the filler did tint the binding, but I figure this will be scraped off later in the finishing process.

Prepped for grain filling

 Preped for filling. Small spatula, mixed dye, grain filler, mixing board, bondo scraper, rags, rubber gloves.

Tinted grain filler

I added the dye to the grain filler. It took a lot more dye than expected to turn the filler a reddish color, even with the dye being saturated in the solution.. Next time, I would just order pre-tinted filler and go from there.

A couple things to watch for here:

• The more dye that I added, the sloppier the mix became
• Make sure the filler and dye is thoroughly mixed. If there's any dye that isn't mixed, it will stain the wood dark red where it's applied. This happened in a few spots and took much more sanding to even the color out.
• Make sure to mix up enough filler to do the entire job. You don't want to have to mix up another batch half way though.

Grain filled body sanded AGAIN!

I didn't get a chance to take any picture during the process. I think I was in a bad mood about how ugly of an operation this turned out to be. The filler mix dried so fast that there was no working time at all. (It was a hot afternoon when I did this) I saw the hours of sanding that would need to be done as I was applying this stuff. I don't even know if a guy should finish sand at all before applying this filler. Might as well just fill early in the game and sand it off once, rather than twice.

Pinkish hue

The filler turned the body a pinkish color, which is no big deal because it's being covered in  dark red tinted lacquer. The binding is also slightly dyed, which will get scraped out after the color coats are applied.

Uneven staining from the wood filler

 In the above photo, you can see where the dye turned the wood darker just above the heel. This was on end grain, so sanding it out was not an option. I hope that the color coats will blend this in. (Update - This is not noticeable under the color coats)

All in all, this was a mess to do and no fun at all. It appears that the grain is filled but is very hard to tell without spraying something shiny onto it...which is the next step.

First color coat

 Here's the first coat of colored lacquer applied to the mahogany parts of the guitar. This first coat showed the results of my grain filling, and I'm not all that happy with it. I should also mention that I sprayed a coat of shellac before the first coat of nitro and sanded most of it off, but not back to bare wood. The shellac I have is orange flakes and seems a bit off to me since after mixing with alcohol and letting sit, it remains cloudy. I will definitely look for better flakes before I try that again. The good part is that this shellac was very easy to sand smooth. Just the weight of the sanding block with 320g paper was enough to level it quickly.

Final color coat

I skipped the pictures of each coat, and this is the final color coat. It took 4 complete coats to get it this color, and for the final 2 coats I added a bit of dark brown dye to the mixture just to add a bit more richness to the color. I'm very happy with the color, and the clarity back to the wood is fantastic. I'm sure it will look great when it's clear coated and polished.

You can get an idea of the amount of color added by looking at the binding. I'm already a fan of tinted lacquer. The color is very even all over the body and could be applied in varying amounts to correct variations in the wood color if necessary.

Final color under fluorescent light

 No drips, runs, or sags! It's important at this stage, as they cannot be easily sanded out. Sanding any of the color coats off makes it lighter in that area and would be difficult to bring back to the overall color.

Final color in morning sun

 This picture is a true likeness of the perceived color.

Here is the spraying schedule:
Day 1:
Mixture: 6oz - Sherwin Williams nitrocellulose lacquer + 1/2 oz dark red aniline dye in alcohol
Sprayed 1 very light coat, waited 1/2hr, sprayed 2 medium wet coats, 25degC, 90% RH (no blushing observed)
Day 2:
Mixture: 4oz - Sherwin Williams nitrocellulose lacquer + 1/2 oz dark red aniline dye in alcohol + 1/4 oz dark brown dye in alcohol
Sprayed 2 wet coats 1 hour apart, 22degC, 90% RH (no blushing observed)

I think I could have mixed the dye stronger with the lacquer to reduce the number of coats, maybe to 2 coats rather than 4, but I'm not sure of the tolerance of the lacquer to dissolving the dye. I will probably try to make it more concentrated for future projects. I should also note that even though it was high humidity, I didn't observe blushing of the lacquer on my test piece, even where I built it up way thicker than I would ever spray on the instrument. Anyways, this worked great, and I'm excited to spray the burst!

Finishing schedule for top:

1. Remove top mask - done
2. Mask sides of body - skipped this step - should have masked for overspray from top!
3. Sand to 600g (already at 320g) - sanded to 400g
4. Spray 2 light coats of clear lacquer - done
5. Spray one even coat of yellow tint lacquer - done
6. Burst with cherry red tint lacquer (wide band, pear shape) - done - too wide
7. Burst with walnut tint lacquer (thin band, pear shape) - done - turned to blackish/wine color
8. Overcoat with amber tint lacquer - done - softened bright red tones
9. Remove side masking
10. Scrape body binding clean
11. Clear lacquer overcoat entire guitar excluding fretboard x 6 coats

It takes between 2 - 3 oz of lacquer per coat to do just the back of the neck and the back and sides of the body. Estimate 3-4oz for entire guitar.

1 - Remove masking from top

2 - Sanded to 400g

4 - 2 coats of clear lacquer - Look at that figure!

5,6,7 - Yellow all over, red band, walnut band

 Notice how ugly the red over yellow is? Can anyone say CLOWN BURST! The red is more like salmon pink rather than orange. I'm glad I read a tip somewhere that said to overcoat the entire burst with amber tint to blend the colors better. This made a huge difference and really enriched the look. I mixed the honeytone amber dye quite strongly with the lacquer, it looked like used motor oil. I think sprayed 2 wet coats about 1/2hr apart.

8 - Amber tint all over top

Next morning outside in natural light

Well, turns out that it's not that difficult to do the burst, but one should keep in mind how wide the bands of color SHOULD be. I really hate how this turned out. The red band is WAY too wide at the bottom of the guitar, and I didn't get enough of a pear shape up near the neck. While spraying the dark band, the gun spit a few small splats of dark that are noticeable up close. These are the details that make or break a great looking replica.

Color wise, I'm not unhappy with the results. If the red band was thinner, I think the results would be great. I didn't do a test top before diving into this one, so the colors were a bit of a surprise, but there's a burst name for this "Brock Burst". The dark band turned into burgundy because of the bright red underneath. This would actually blend nicely into the color of the back.

I have been mulling over the photos all day at work and weighing the pros and cons of stripping the top and trying again. I certainly don't want to make a mess of it, or stain the top in a way that is irreversible. The binding is also a concern if acetone or some other liquid stripper is used. I think the plan is to try to use a heat gun and a metal scraper. I will try this on the test blocks I used during the spraying. If the color comes off cleanly and it won't take all night, I will strip the top and try again. The bonus at this stage is that the finish is already thick and still quite soft this morning, so it may come off easier than I think.

If it seems like a daunting task to strip the top, I will continue on and chalk it up to experience. The next step (if not refinishing) is to scrape the binding back to the original color. This will leave a step in the finish due to the thickness. I haven't really seen anyone address this issue, but I think that masking off so that only the binding is exposed and spraying some coats of lacquer on it only will bring it up to the level of the rest of the surfaces. I can then remove the masking and continue clear coats over the whole guitar.

We will see...

Ok, so first thing I did when I got home was find my heat gun, a small spatula and try to strip the coating from one of my test blocks of wood. Success! It was remarkably easy to do. I would just heat up the area with the heat gun on high, making sure not to heat it so hot that the coating started to bubble, but hot enough to become soft. I would get the spatula started under the coating and with a smooth stroke, just push and lacquer came off in long clean strips with no damage to the underlying wood. I could even see the first clear coats being peeled off. The spatula is flexible enough to conform to the top of the guitar. (the one I used can be seen in the tinted grain filler pic above)

1/2hr later, the entire top was stripped. Another 10 minutes and it was resanded smooth to 400g all over and ready for try #2! 

I decided at this point that I would scrape the side of the binding before spraying the top again. I figure this is safer than working around a fresh and soft paint job. This took quite some time, probably upwards of an hour or so. It would help if I had some sort of vice to hold the guitar in while I do this. I think I will make something for the next few builds. 

For the scraper tool, I took a 18mm snap off utility knife blade and ground off the sharp edge just so I could hold it. I then sharpened the 'snap off' end first on the grinder, then honed on a diamond stone to make it razor sharp. I blunted the tip of the blade a bit so that it wouldnt tend to dig in. 

The binding scraping 'Tool'.

Scraping the side binding - working from inside out

With a sharp tool, the fresh lacquer come off pretty easy. It's a bit gummy, but when you are down to the binding, it's much more slippery, so the last few strokes are very smooth and chatter free. I try to work the inside of the binding first, then scrape off the rest towards the edge. I leave about .010" for the final scraping passes. I did run into a few problem areas where I must have got too much heat from stripping the top which turned the soft lacquer very brittle and it started to chip rather than peel. There's a few spots that I will touch up before going to the clear coats. 

Tip: Use a flexible fence for the final scraping. A piece of thin shim stock makes a great fence to work against. Hold it in place with one hand and scrape a perfectly strait line with the scraping tool. For teh neck binding, use a 6" steel ruler as a fence for perfect scraping!

Anyways, with the binding stripped, I masked the sides and up the neck of the guitar. I should have done this the first time around. Better safe than sorry. This time, rather than lay down some clear coats then the yellow, I just sprayed the yellow. It took about 4 oz of yellow to get the right hue, so adding the clear was just extra thickness that was not really required in my opinion.

Prepped for round 2

Lemon yellow applied

 I made sure that the yellow coats were smooth by laying the final coat on pretty thick, then laying the guitar down to help it level out before it set up. I think this is key to getting a nice even burst. If the surface is rough or has excessive orange peel, the color will take on this profile.

Red band applied

 I really took my time both setting up the gun, as well as applying the red band. This time I used my eyes and checked often outside in natural light to make sure that it will applied even all the way around. I also started the red by spraying the horn and shoulder to make sure that it had the pear shape. When I was happy with the red, I moved on to the walnut brown.

Walnut band sprayed over red

 Same as with the red, I used my eyes and checked often for color density and shape. I think I got I on there pretty even.

Even, No?

Honeytone amber top coats applied

I mixed up the same density of color for the honeytone amber as the first go around. It was nearly half and half lacquer to dye. I really like how this warms up the colors and the transition between the colors. I laid these coats on pretty thick, about 4 oz in total sprayed over 2 wet coats.

Color complete

So there it stands. I think I could have gone a bit wider with the colors, but I'm happy with the results.  It's certainly an improvement over the first go around. I think once the binding is revealed, it will look great! Now it's off to the lake for another nice weekend, so the guitar will have 4 days to cure before moving on to the clear coating process. 

Random Fact: Weight at this stage: 7.6lbs

For future reference here's the paint quantities required:

• Back/Sides/neck - 6-8 oz of dark red tinted lacquer (less required depending on color density)
• Top base yellow - 3 oz of lemon yellow (mix as strong as possible)
• Top red band - 1 1/2 of of bordeaux red
• Top dark band - 1 oz of dark walnut
• Top amber coats - 4 oz of honeytone amber

Dyes were nixed in at about 1:3 ratio dye to lacquer. To simplify this process in the future, I will mix up all the lacquer/dye solutions ahead of time so it's just a matter of cleaning the gun and filing with the new color. Less fusing around, less times opening the can of lacquer, fewer rubber gloves required.

Aug 4th

Well, I had another major disaster with this guitar. Every luthiers nightmare is the guitar falling off the hanging wire while finishing, and this came true for me. What a disheartening sight as I opened my garage door to find the instrument laying face down on the concrete. The wire is certainly heavy enough to support the guitar, but I didn't twist the end of the wire back on itself and the weight must have straitened it out enough to slip through the hanging post on the bottom of the guitar. 

Damage to the sunburst

It sustained damage, mostly to the tip of the headstock where it would have hit first, then to the lower bout of the body where it would have made the second impact. Remarkably, the top of the guitar just had a small scuff on it where it came to rest. The binding compressed the maple top for about an inch and of course the edge of the sunburst was damaged. I took this as an opportunity to try my hand at repairing. The worst case would be stripping the top again if the repair didn't work.  

I sanded back the edge of the burst and feathered the dark top coat into the red. I filled the dent in the wood top with epoxy, let it cure overnight then scraped and sanded flush. Spraying went well. Sprayed with the red first, then totally covered the red with the walnut. It covered well, and it just slightly darker than the surrounding area. I think it looks good, especially with the dark color of the cutaway horn. 

Damage to the headstock

The headstock was another story. Since the dents along the top were about 1/8" deep, there was no way to really fix it without cutting it off, so that's what I did. I scribed a new line about 1/8" from the top and worked down to the line using files and a small sanding drum on the dremel tool. I then had to spray the maroon color again to get it to match the rest of the back. 

These mishaps probably set me back about 2 days, but it could have been worse, like having the headstock totally break off! 

After these areas were repaired, I finished scraping the binding around the body and neck. To get a nice crisp, strait line along the neck, I held a steel parallel (1/8" thick piece of steel, precision ground all over) along the binding line and used it as a fence for the scraper blade. Super crisp and strait line. Due to the thickness of the color coats, the binding sits below the surrounding surfaces by about 0.010". I made sure to give all of these areas extra clear lacquer with each coat to build it up and allow the wet sanding to blend it down flush. On future guitars, I will try to get the color much more saturated so that it takes much less spraying to get the desired color.

Last night I cut some of the plastic parts for the guitar. I used one of the new single flute, 1/16" end mills that I got from Harvey Tools. it worked like a charm and left a very nice surface finish on the cut edges. Three black plates are required:

• Controls cavity cover
• Switch cavity cover
• Truss rod cavity cover

Cutting the controls cavity cover on the CNC router

Finished plates

Truss rod covers (there is a protective film still on the plates)

The plastic I used is black/white/black. i know this is not correct, but it will not be noticeable when the covers are in place. I checked the fit after they were cut out, and they are a perfect fit in the cavities. I cut 2 truss rod covers, one of them, I worked to chamfer the sides. The other is a spare if I think that the cover is too thick, I will mill it down. (I know that the bell shape of these covers is copyright by 'G')

Update - I recently bought a signmaking, 3 flute, solid carbide, 60deg V cutter and cut a new cover out using this. Looks pretty sweet! Signmaking bit

 

I still have to mill out the jack plate and pick guard. These will be cut from the cream plastic sheet. I think I will wait on the pickguard until the pickups are installed so that I can get it to fit perfectly between the pickup rings.

All week I have been spraying twice a day and I think that todays coat will be the final one. I will spray one final wet coat over the entire guitar and let it sit for a week or 2 before wet sanding and buffing it to the final shine. Meanwhile, I will be starting on Les Paul #2... Stay Tuned!

Aug 18th

It's been over a week and I didn't have a bunch to do on Sunday. I started the day by mixing up the dyes that will be used for LP #2. After I colored the body and sprayed the sunburst, I decided to start wet sanding this guitar. There's just a hint of lacquer odor still left. After sanding, the curing will continue.

As a side note, I read somewhere that to help lacquer cure faster, the day after it is sprayed, sand off the glossy top coat and it will gas off faster. I would tend to think this is true and will try this on the next guitar. I will just dull it up using scotch brite.

Anyways, the wet sanding took much longer than I thought it would. I started at 5pm and ended at 10pm, with few breaks. I started with 400g wet/dry paper by 3M. It's P graded paper, and cuts incredibly well. The majority of time was spent with this grit. My goal was to have the entire guitar block sanded dull with this grit before moving to the finer grits. I used a Faber-Castel white eraser as a backer for the paper. I more or less achieved this, but there is a spot on the back where the grain didn't fill and it was a little too deep for comfort to sand out. I really didn't want to hit the color coats, or it would all be ruined. I sanded up to 1500g before calling it a night. I never did go up to 2000g, and I don't think it's required if starting the buffing with an aggressive enough compound.

Just a note about how much paper I used. 1pcs - 3" x 3" for the 400 grit stage, 1pcs each, 1" x 3" for each of the other grades. It takes very little paper if you are not gumming them up by sanding uncured lacquer. By this account, the pack below would be enough to do about 36 guitars!

3M WETORDRY finishing paper. Grits 400 to 2000. Canadian tire sells this if you can't find it somewhere more expensive.

Monday after work I dug out all the stuff I had for buffing, which isn't much: 

• 4" cloth buffing wheel
• 4" foam buffing wheel - cleaning (large pores)
• 4" foam buffing wheel - finish (smaller pores)
• 1 bottle of Mcguires #2
• 1 bottle of Kleen-Flo Paint Restorer
• 1 crappy old Dewalt drill, 2500rpm
• 1 hook and loop drill arbor for the buffing pads

My massive buffing setup.

I started by washing out the wheels with warm water and soap to get rid of whatever was on them from last time. In hind sight, reusing these pads was a bit of a risk. One stray particle could have destroyed the finish, but that didn't happen. After washing out the wool wheel, I tried it lightly and dry on a test piece of lacquered wood, it immediately buffed the surface to a high shine. I'm pretty sure that I had used this wheel with the Mcguires #2 before, so without adding anymore to it, I did the back of the neck. It worked well, and still had enough compound to do nearly the entire guitar. I added a bit more as required. It took about an hour to do the entire guitar. I really need some sort of bench vise to hold guitars when working on them. It was risky to hold the guitar with one hand and try to buff with the less than ideal drill setup with the other hand. 

I was going to call it night thinking that I didn't have the correct abrasive to do the next step, but for some reason I put on one of the foam pads, added some of the paint restorer stuff and gave it a whirl. OMG! It went from shiny to OUT OF THIS WORLD shiny. I had to stop because my eyes hurt from looking at it. My cheeks hurt from smiling so hard. Best of all, it didn't take much buffing with this wheel to remove all swirls from the previous step. There was very little residue left and no streaks. Any residue that refused to buff out, I just wiped off with a wet cloth and hit with the buffing wheel again. Incredibly shiny, and the depth of the lacquer was finally reveled. The mahogany back looks like it's under an inch of glass and glimmers under the light. The top is outrageous, full of depth and clarity. The chatoyance of the quilted maple is beautiful. I'm glad I didn't 'lock the grain' by pre-staining it. 

The ubiquitous hardware mockup shot!

So that's great, but I'm still going to get a bottle of Mcguires #1, hit it with that, then redo the paint restorer step. I'm sure by the time I've fit the hardware on it, it will require a final buffing before final assembly. That's a lot of finally s, I must be getting close to the end.

I've been contemplating somehow making the 'Les Paul Model" headstock decal. I found a guy on MLP that makes silk screens to do the decal, and if I were making many of them, that's the route I would go. But since I'm only planning on making 2, I ended up buying the decals from http://www.croxguitars.com/decals.htm. 

They were a little pricey. They were expensive at $25CAD each, but should be a no muss, no fuss excersize. I've seen examples of other les paul replicas using them and they look awesome. They are a water slide decal covered in NC lacquer, so all I have to do is slip it onto the headsotck, let it dry, then encase it in a few finishing coats and buff it out. 

Update: I also found a guy through G+ who makes custom water slide decals and will use gold leaf if required. here's a link to his website: CIDecals He has made the LP Model decals before. I think I will work on a decal that goes on the back of the headsotck, kind of like a seal of approval.

My other thoughts on doing this were to try to make a rubber stamp by v-carving it on the cnc router, but since I didn't have any superior material in mind to make it out of, I just wasted the money and bought the decals.

Next step is making the bone nut and installing the components, stringing it up, and lettin er rip!

18 Aug

I really had other things to do tonite, but the shiny guitar was calling my name. I started by cleaning up all the cavities to remove lacquer overspray and wet sanding residue. I used a small sanding drum on the dremel to do this. I also had to clean out all the holes, bridge, tailpiece, switch, and pots. They were all made significantly smaller from the finish. Care has to be taken when doing this, especially if the edge of the holes will be seen after assembly. The lacquer is brittle and one bad move and there's a chip out of the finish and some choice words. I was able to clean them up with 100% success.

Next was on to figuring out how to mount the control pots and switch into the maple cap. I should have done this step before finishing, hell, before even finish sanding, but I wasn't sure how I was going to do it, so I left it till now. Since the cap varies in thickness from 5/8" to 1/4", each hole through the top needs to have a specific depth and angle so that the hardware comes out the top properly. The pot holes need to be about 1/8" to 3/16" thick and in one of the holes, it is about 5/8" thick. I know that there was supposed to be a second route done that would thin the top to correct this issue, but rather, I used a 1" forstner bit on the drill press and carefully located and drilled a recess for the pots on each hole. I held the guitar tangent to the table so that the pot shafts would be perpendicular to the maple cap, plus or minus. This was a bit nerve racking, but forstner bits do not bite in, so I wasn't too worried about a catastrophic failure. (Imagine that 1" forstner bit tearing through the cap! I shiver thinking about it)

Bit late in the game to be using the drill press isn't it Paul?

Proper depth drilled for the control pots.

I drilled beside the main holes to make room for the connector board on the control pots. I didn't install the pots yet. Wiring will be tomorrows job. For now, I just want to put some strings on it.

Lining up the tuners.

Next was on to lining up the tuners. I've done this half drunk before and it shows, so I spent some extra time adjusting them and looking at them from afar without a beer in my hand to make sure that they look good. I predrilled each of the anti-torque screws and screwed them in. Because the finish is still soft, I didn't tighten them down, just tightened them up to the tuner body. If I tighten them down now, it will certainly deform the finish, causing a ridge where the tuners are. I just have to remember to come back to these in a month or so and give them the final tightening.

On the front side, I went to put in the threaded ferrules with the washer and discovered that they are all too short to reach the tuner body. The washers are a tad thick (maybe .050" or so), so I'll probably have to make some new ones that are lower profile.For now, I left off the washers. The headstock isn't thicker that it should be, so I'm wondering why these are short?

Bridge and tailpiece installed

Next step was to insert the bushings for the bridge and tailpiece. Easy peasy. They are a great fit in the holes and line up perfectly with the mating bridge and tailpieces. (notice how clean that pickup cavity is!) half a dozen good hammer blows and they were seated. (!!dont forget that ground wire from the tailpiece bushing!!) I did a quick check with a strait edge to see about the bridge height, and it looks a bit high, even at the lowest setting. I have a plan if this is the case.

Rough bone blank

 Onto the nut. I discovered how lacking my nut making tool kit was when I got to this point. The nut is very important, the slots for the strings should be accurately positioned and cut to the correct depth. The bottoms of the slots should be rounded to cradle the string. The angle of the slots should be greater than that of the headsotck so the the only contact is right at the plane between the fretboard and the face of the nut. I could probably write an entire article about the process for creating the nut, but to keep it short, I got it shaped and the string slots cut, but I'm not happy with it, so I will be making another one after I get my expensive string slotting files. The problem is with the first 2 strings. The slots are a bit wide and I can hear buzzing here. I really need an accurate width, angle, and depth of slot for all the strings for it to pass my inspection.

String slotting files

Just a note here, shaping bone can be a real PITA with any power tools, It's highly abrasion resistant (go figure) and stinks like hell when sanding with a disk sander or grinder. The easiest way to do it is to use one of your expensive rasps. It cuts fast and accurately with no smell. Period.

Onto the pickups. I was so excited, that I didn't take any pictures of the pickup installation. No worries, it's a strait forward process. Put the pickup in the pickup ring, put the assembly in the pickup cavity, predrill the holes and screw in place, again, putting no pressure on the soft finish, just enough to hold them in place. Done.

At this point, all that was needed were some strings. I happened to find a new set in one of my junk boxes, so away I went. What an exciting moment, the first good vibrations from a new axe! A tweek here and there with the bridge height and the string depths at the nut and it was good to go! All I can say after an hour or so of testing is WOW! Such a crisp and clear sound on every string at every fret position! It's quite loud too for being unplugged. It of course need a good intonation at the bridge, but other than that it sounds great. I can hardly wait to get home today to wire up the electronics and giver a whirl through the amp.

A careful reader may have noticed that I missed a major step in the setup - fret leveling. True, I have not done this yet, but after examining with a machinist strait edge, I see no need for it at this point. As I get closer to the final setup with a low string action, I may see a need for this, but at this point it's quite adequate. I have also ordered a concave fret file to crown the frets after leveling. I didn't want to level the frets then spend hours crowing them with a regular file until required. With the proper file, it will literally take 10 minutes to crown them all perfectly after leveling.

Anyways, I will take a few more pictures of the rest of the hardware installation tonight.

19 Aug

So I completed the wiring and hardware installation tonite and had another hour or so to play around with it. I am genuinely impressed. The crisp, clear tones when playing through the amp on a clean setting is hair raising. It is very dynamic and responsive. Both the bridge and neck pickups are fantastic, the best overall tone I have ever heard. Of course, the face melting tones that can be unleashed with distortion are also awesome. There's alot that I don't even know yet, but so far me likey!

Completed control cavity wiring

Wiring was pretty strait forward. I just followed the schematic that came with the wiring kit from Stew-Mac. This is a bit messier that I want, but when I do the final assembly, I will clean it up. I would also like to line the cavity with copper shielding, not that it's noisy, but it couldn't hurt.

I had to scratch my head to figure out why the fretboad pickup had 4 wires and the bridge pickup only had 2. I discovered today that they are not the same model of pickup. One is a Parsons Street Golden Age (the bridge) and the other is just a Golden Age. I love the tone of each, but am interested in trying out the variations with the neck pickup, then trying the Parsons Street Golden Age neck pickup.

The volume pots have a nice taper from full down to 0 and seem to be linear. The tone controls also work well, but when turned down below about 2, they give a different tone, not bad, but different. I will have to look into that and see if there's anything that can be done about it.

I also did the intonation of the bridge. this was pretty easy and I got each string spot on. There was just enough adjustment on the A and G strings. I will do this again after final assembly.

Treble/Rhythm Switch Cavity

I happened to have a chunk of wire with 3 conductors and a braided shield from an old thermocouple in my box-o-wire. perfect for running the wires from the switch cavity. Then I re-wire, I will use the braiding as the shielding conductor rather than a separate wire for this. Nice and neat.

Jack Plate

I also had to cnc router the jack plate to complete the electronics. I also cutout the pickguard at the same time. It's a perfect fit around the pickup rings. Not sure if I will actually use it or not.

Cover plates on

The cover plates were countersunk for the tiny screws and installed. Again, they are a perfect fit in the cavities.

Everything installed!

My work at the drill press paid off. the pot stems exit through the top of the body pretty much perpendicular to the surounding face. They look natural. I had to modify the top hat knobs to fit the pots. The ones I got fit nicely on the pots that came in the 'premium' wiring package, but they were way too tight to even get onto the pots that I used. All I did was clamp a 15/64" drill bit in the vice, and ream the holes out by hand. Now they fit perfectly.

And that's pretty much it for now. The last things to do are:

• Finish the headstock. I'm waiting for the decals to arrive. Once they do, I can apply them and shoot the final coats of lacquer, sand, buff, polish and the headstock will be done
• Stamp a serial number in the back of the headstock. Could come in handy in an insurance situation.
• Final buff. On closer inspection, the Mcguires #2 did not remove all of the strait line scratches from the 1500g sanding. I think that I will do the final wet sand with 2000g and maybe even 2500g, then start with the mcguires #2, then #1, then finish with mirror glaze or the like. This will take another couple of hours at most.
• Make a new nut. To happen when the new nut files come and the headstock is done.
• Buy a decent case for it so that I can take it around and show it off!
• Get some pro quality photos of the instrument.
• Play it!

Aug 24th

So I got a few packages today in the mail. Both the nut/fret crowing files, as well as the decals from the guy in Germany.

Here's a few shots of the decals on the headstock. He sent some good instructions on how to get the decal on the headsotck too, but nothing about getting it on their in the right position, or strait for that matter. Yeah, they are off a bit on both headsotcks, but I'm not going to let that bother me. I guess if I had to do it again, I would print a template of the headsotck with where the decal should go and use this to make sure it's in the exact location.

Decal applied, but not yet lacquered over

Lacquered over

The earlier Les Pauls had the decal placed closer to the top of the headsotck, where the "L" is located between the middle two tuners. Later on, it looks like they shifted this closer to the nut. Vertically wise, I got it in the correct location, just not sure if it's centered on the headstock. Oh well.

So I'm just finishing the clear coats over the decal. When it's cured for a week or so, I can do the final buffing of the entire guitar.

Meanwhile, I stumbled across this page that has sound clips that compare a number of different pickups: http://www.gibson.com/News-Lifestyle/Features/en-us/tone-hunting-0309-2011.aspx

I'm not exactly sure where the Golden Age pickups would wedge into this mix, but definately somewhere in there. These are all pickups made by Gibson, and there are a plethora of other high end pickups made to suit the tone of the Les Paul.

29 Aug

Shes done! I spent the morning working on the 3 guitar stands I designed during the week. I removed all the hardware from the beast so that I could continue with wet sanding the entire instrument. I stopped at 1500g the first time around, and after inspecting it for a week or so, there were some spots where I could still see the sanding marks, so I decided to continue wet sanding up to 2500g. That did the trick. After polishing, there are no sanding marks left. If I had a more aggressive polishing compound, I would probably be able to get away with stopping at 1500. Each grit takes about 45mins to an hour to go over the entire guitar, so it will be worth investigating more aggressive compounds for the next one. The headstock had ample buildup and I was not worried about sanding into the decal. Next time I would plug the tuner holes with something absorbent. The water/slurry seemed to migrate under the lacquer around these holes and traveled with the wood grain up to about 3/8" on each hole. I shoved some small desiccant packs into the holes overnight, and by the morning, the swelling had disappeared without any visible damage to the paint.

While I had all the hardware off, I used this opportunity to modify the pickup rings, bridge, and nut. Because the angle of the neck to the body is slightly less that the original 59's (4 deg rather than 4.4 deg) I found that the lowest bridge position was still higher that I would like. Also, the stock humbucker rings were a bit too high. I removed 0.062" from the rear ring and 0.025 from the front ring. I just used a flat piece of sandpaper and worked down to the line that I scribed around the base of the rings using a height gauge. Pretty strait forwards.

I modified the bridge by removing 1/16" from the surface that rides on the height adjustment posts, a ten minute job on the milling machine. After this, I flipped the G and B saddles around to give a bit more intonation adjustment. I also used the new nut files to groove each saddle to the correct string diameter. I'm sure that this made a positive difference in being able to set the intonation for each string. It also removed a slight buzzing on the round wound strings. I would be interested to see if Gibson does this from the factory.

As for the nut, I used the files to give the final depth to the slots and make them the correct width. I had a set of Ernie Ball Regular Slinkys which are a 10 to 46 gauge. I used these to make sure that the grooves were the correct width. I followed up by final shaping and sanding up to 600g. It's nice and shiny! Glad I didn't bother making a new one, I was smart enough to leave a bit of extra height in the grooves to allow for final filing of the slots to the final depth. Each slot has a nice round bottom, just like the pro's would do it! Here's a good page on the correct way to do these slots: http://www.lutherie.net/nuts.html

Final Assembly

Putting it back together only took about an hour. I took this opportunity to switch out the neck pickup which I had mistakenly installed  the first time around. I discovered that it was labeled wrong from Stew-Mac. Anyways, I located the correct one in the box-o-parts and installed it. This one uses an alnico 2 magnet, the bridge is an alnico 5 magnet. I cleaned up the nut slot with the trusty binding scraper blade and made sure that it was flat with no lacquer between it and the neck wood. a tiny drop of superglue was used in the middle of the nut just to hold it in place.

I cleaned up the wiring and as I was doing something, a glob of molten solder flew off the wire I was tinning and landed on the back of the freshly polished guitar. I watched in horror as it started smoking and sizzling through the finish. Wow, if it can go wrong, it will. Instinctively, I tried to brush the ball of solder away, but all this did was smear the solder over the back of the guitar. That was a bit of a buzz kill. Thankfully, the smeared solder didn't do any damage. The ball of solder did burn the finish through to the wood, but it's a pretty small hole. I'll just drop fill it with the same tint of lacquer. No big deal, just another lesson learned.

Anyways, I love playing this guitar. It's almost inspirational. It rings so clean and clear it's a pleasure to use all the strings! It's also very dynamic and all the controls work the way they should. I will have to do a few sound clips, but meanwhile this vid is a good representation of the sounds that it can produce. (This guy is talented beyond words. Greg Koch. Their is some sort of magic in his playing that cannot be explained. He does demos of many guitars for the Wildwood Guitars website. He can also be Youtube'd, and there lots of live stuff to watch. Really unbelievable...)

Just a few final pictures to come. 

Dont forget to check out build #2... http://paulypiranha.blogspot.ca/2015/08/les-paul-2.html

Here's some glamour shots:

Weight: 9.8lbs