Les Paul Custom build

roberty

Wow that looks great @davros. Really impressive 

Springywheel

Looking great indeed 

davros

I haven't updated in a while but made some good progress the last couple of weeks. I've refined the top carve with sanding and scrapers, and the binding flush. Routed the control cavities and cover rebates. The neck seems to be stable so I routed and chisled the inlays and radiused the fretboard.

Next to refine the neck carve and ensure no more neck movement before gluing in the inlays. The body is done for now, until I glue in the neck.

PeteC

Man that looks so neat - lovely work.  I am just tooling up for my first LP build - I have enough figured maple stock to do 3 and another with a plain maple cap.   After the 2 PRS type carves and watching your builds i am feeling more confident about it.    

davros

Looking forward to seeing that build thread @PeteC ! I highly recommend the top carve thread on MyLesPaul, it helped me a lot.

PeteC

davros said:

Looking forward to seeing that build thread @PeteC ! I highly recommend the top carve thread on MyLesPaul, it helped me a lot.

Yep - Ive read the ExNihilo threads and been scanning the Barlett MLP thread too. 
FreddyG's video series on building LPs on Youtube is also really excellent. 

I really like Scott (Ex Nihilos ) overarm router jig using the lexan/perspex plate and simple box construction to do the top carve like a budget overhead router.  I make rig one up. 

Quick q - where did you source your inlay set from ? 

davros

Inlays were a bit of mare! Last set of block inlays I ordered for the olive telepaul were from jnnpearlinlay on ebay in China. They were really nice but out of stock this time (they are in now). For this build i ordered some from Crimson (Hosco i think) but they were the wrong sizes, a bit too small so returned them. This batch were from ToneTech and much better.

If you're doing a Standard then traditionally they would be celluloid not MOP, which I think is a bit more of a minefield to get good looking ones.

davros

Had a day off work today so been working more on the neck. No more movement so I've glued and filled the block inlays, glued on the headstock veneer, cut truss rod access, drilled for the tuners and sanded the headstock outline to the headstock veneer.

Looking pretty good, if I do say so myself. Will look better when the headstock is sprayed black.

The plan for spraying the headstock is to use masking film - I'll manually cut around the split diamond and use my wife's cricut to make a mask for the logo. The MOP is about 0.5mm too large all the way around, so the logo will be a little more delicate when painted over. That's way ahead though. Next up is finishing the neck carve at the headstock end, then I can glue the neck in and get back to the body end.

PeteC

Fabulous work as usual.   That looks so good.  

davros

The neck is now glued in and I have begun work on the last body bits, namely fitting the bridge and routing for pickups


And a quick mockup - I need to make a pickguard, this is just a random old one



Next up is finalising the neck to body transition, drilling for the controls and reducing the thickness behind them to make them fit square with the top.

Then that's pretty much it for the woodwork - onto the finishing!

88CuzJ

Well done. This is amazing!

Teyeplayer

Incredible skill, I’m in awe every time I follow one of these threads. 

Andyjr1515

Looking good @davros ;

davros

Some more assembling, a bit of nut filing and now it's strung. Always looks different with strings on! I'm very happy with the alignment of neck/bridge/pickups. Tomorrow I'm planning to wire up the bridge pickup and see how the scrapyard dog plus sounds through an amp before starting work on levelling/crowning/polishing the frets.

hollywoodrox

Wow amazing job man 

Seziertisch

What colour are you going to go for?

davros

White. Manchester Guitar Tech's olympic white, which I'm assured is a white white, and a good match for Alpine White.

davros

Mini update, it has a pickguard! Made from 5 ply, with a 50s correct 60 degree bevel.

I've ordered a new bracket as this is a thin metal, wider than normal one that looks a bit too 'import' for my liking.



And with its less custom sister. The Custom headstock is clearly a lot bigger!!! It's not neck heavy though, despite being fully chambered.

davros

It all plays well and is fully set up, so onto finishing!

Starting with grain filler. Since this is going to be a solid white nitro finish, I'm using white grain filler to avoid any bleed through. It shows the grain much more than dark filler, I'd probably use this in the future for solid colours.



Finishing will start with the headstock. I got some solvent resistant masking film on ebay and used my wife's cricut to cut out the logo. I cut the split diamond mask with a fresh scalpel. The binding is masked with vinyl pinstriping tape, as I know it can be scraped but when it is multi-ply like this, masking should work well.



I've just sprayed the first coat of black nitro. Once it's fully covered I'll remove the masking before the last coat is fully dry with all fingers and toes crossed!

davros

That seemed to go ok! the paint is a bit lumpy and there's a bit of build up around the masking but I can fix that once it's buried under some clear. the edges are very crisp.