A Les Paul build like no other - jawdropping

equalsql

Just found this on the tube. Some of you may have seen it but I've never seen a guitar built like this example. The chap even builds his own wooden pickup and surrounds. The body and neck are single piece of wood.

WezV

its very impressive

also very wasteful and unless the wood is absolutely perfect all through the whole piece you do risk structural issues - a lot of extra effort for something that might not be as good as the more traditional way... and some real danger moments in there too

monquixote

It's hugely impressive. 

Bit of a disappointment at the end when it doesn't sound all that great.

WezV

just finished the 3rd vid.  there are some genius jigs throughout.  and teh vid answers most of the "how do I" questions we get around here

still think the one piece thing is a bad idea though and some of his methods are incredibly wastefull

Ageinggroover

This guy is an astonishingly good craftsman. The planning involved to avoid all the usual work-holding and machining problems is impressive. What's most worthy of respect is his ability to turn his hand to all aspects of the build - it was only a little disappointing that he didn't machine or hand-fettle his own bridge, tailpiece and machine heads! I'm pretty sure that if he'd had a mill and lathe to hand he would have! The french polishing was an interesting choice of finish, but probably appropriate if not very durable.

It was a little disappointing sound-wise. I'd love to build a guitar from scratch but after all the effort it would be pretty shattering to find that the finished product just didn't do it for you (:| (Christ, the emoticon choice here is a bit bewildering!).

Oh, and the other thing worthy of comment is the fact that he went to the trouble of filming the whole thing. He's even made a pretty good fist of that too.

Maximum respect due.

Thanks for sharing.

ICBM

Interesting. I thought I was going to hate it - I'm really not a fan of wood trim, tune-o-matic+string-through, or furniture-finish guitars at all... but the whole thing somehow works and it's pretty nice.

It does look very wasteful, but possibly not more so than building the conventional way - the wastage at each stage of the process in making standard pieces is frightening too - at least by starting with a single piece of wood he cuts out a lot of the intermediate steps, and it might work out no worse.

How it sounds on the clip is irrelevant, it's clearly not recorded properly.

ftumch

Here's a better demo of it. I think its bloody lovely, maybe not the wood pickups but otherwise stunning. And yeah actually does sound good too.

ThePrettyDamned

Bloody hell. Very nice! Bit of an effort, but I suppose that's the point.

equalsql

WezV said:

still think the one piece thing is a bad idea though and some of his methods are incredibly wastefull

I agree it's a hell of risk building from a single piece of wood, and I winced when I saw how much appears to  be wasted..he must have deep pockets. There's some outstanding craftsmanship on display though.

WezV

thing is, one piece will work if you choose a perfect piece of wood - but for me that just makes it more of a waste to do it this way.   

RedRabbit

monquixote said:

It's hugely impressive. 

Bit of a disappointment at the end when it doesn't sound all that great.

Agreed but I think the fact that it isn't played well contributes to the fact that it doesn't sound great.  The later demos sound okay.  Sure some of the construction choices aren't what I'd have opted for but the craftsmanship is hard to deny.

monquixote

I don't think you can actually tell anything about the sound of the guitar from the clip he put up at the end, I just thought it was a bit disappointing he put so much effort into the guitar and the making of  and then put a rubbish demo at the end. 

The other demo vid is much better. 

RedRabbit

Definitely, but how much more disappointing would it have been to get through 30 minutes of awesome build videos without a quick demo at the end.  I think it's more to show that it worked than to show how good it was.  Disappointing? Yes, but what are the chances of a gifted luthier being a gifted player.

monquixote

I don't want to seem picky, it was a great vid. 

octatonic

Very wasteful but quite amazing to have done it.

For some reason it reminded me of someone on an Ibanez forum moaning about how Gibson should stop using ebony in their guitars and how they should 'THINK OF THE ELEPHANTS!!!!'.

Misterg

I liked that, thanks

Evilmags

RedRabbit;39705" said:

Definitely, but how much more disappointing would it have been to get through 30 minutes of awesome build videos without a quick demo at the end.  I think it's more to show that it worked than to show how good it was.  Disappointing? Yes, but what are the chances of a gifted luthier being a gifted player.

Paul Reed Smith is .sn excellent player funnily enough.

Antique_Guitars

As per what Wez said as crazy waste of wood

ChrisMusic

Astonshing

I am always enthralled by watching a craftsman at work and how easy they make everything look.  It never is, and that is true craftsmanship.

A man truly in love with wood (even if a bit wasteful to our eyes)

The raw skill in wielding a hand saw like that, wow.

So many places it could all go terribly wrong, but somehow I just knew he wouldn't make any mistake.

Definitely not for commercial production though @WezV.  I had palpitations just watching.

What an astounding labour of love.

I was mesmerised the whole way through, thanks for posting this for us, what a great use of 30 mins.  I wish the rest of my day were that inspirational.

Rocker

The posts who said it is 'a waste of wood' might have missed the point.  The guy built a lovely guitar and, to his credit, he used very few bought in parts.  And it sounds pretty good too.

I go along with what ChrisMusic said above.

streethawk

Wonderful.

Also saw a thread on a guy who made a maple top tele in his appt, using hand tools!