Build thread: Pancake body les paul deluxe

breakstuff

Stunning job.I love this guitar sooooo much.

RocknRollDave

A very, very nice looking guitar.


Wouldn't it have been better to route it for the Floyd Rose before you painted it, though....?

Andyjr1515

Really nice job, @WezV.  Near-black or black gloss is sooooooo difficult to get right - this looks pretty near damn spot on 

WezV

RocknRollDave said:

A very, very nice looking guitar.


Wouldn't it have been better to route it for the Floyd Rose before you painted it, though....?

nah, that would lack authenticity. I am taking the fender CS route  of making it look like an old guitar that got modded.  I might go kahler though, that seems more fitting for the time period  

Andyjr1515 said:

Really nice job, @WezV.  Near-black or black gloss is sooooooo difficult to get right - this looks pretty near damn spot on 

it ain't that close to spot on, but I am confident it will end up reasonably well now I have got it to this stage without sanding through.  It had a lot of orange peel partly due to spraying in cold temperatures.

There are a few areas of the finish which are best described as "authentically Gibson"

WezV

I think I will stop here.

I spent another hour hand buffing the top last night.  I started by going over some of the rough areas with 1200g wet and dry again.  the repeated the t-cut buff and finished it off with auto-glym.  

Andyjr1515

Yup - there's a time to stop...

Lovely job 

nick_s

Very cool!

monofin

Truly stunning piece of work

ICBM

You really can't not put 'Wez Paul' on it now, surely…?

WezV

ICBM;953637" said:

You really can't not put 'Wez Paul' on it now, surely…?

Nah, not now its got the disc logo. I may have done it if it had a more traditional main logo

nick_s

*cough* engraved truss rod cover *cough*

WezV

sorry guys, I like the simplicity of the logo disc too much to go adding more to the headstock

although on the subject of truss rod covers  I was slightly disappointed to notice the gibson style one I have just received is two layers of plastic.  A smaller black TRC on top of a larger white one.   Even though I ordered the same part from the same supplier last year and it was proper 2 play with polished bevelled edges

the new one just looks massively cheap in comparison, even though i think it might be more historically accurate.  gonna have to go searching for the other one now

WezV

So I have been thinkign about the pickup mounting brackets - or as Ash called it, "the silly bugger method"

you can get mini-humbucker mounting rings with screws at the corners - dead easy to use

But they just don't look right.  Gibson traditionally used a mounting plate, but these are hard to find so I decided to make some

So i got £2.30's worth or aluminium of ebay

measure the pickup screw spacing and mark it up

then drill some holes.   I am using M3 pickup screws so drilled the holes to 2.5mm and used a M3 tap to thread them.  The tap cost £2.99 on ebay

one of my drill holes wandered, but the important thing is the two outside holes did end up the correct distance apart, although the actual bracket will be installed slightly crooked.   I have plenty of spare aluminium, they only take minutes to make so I may do some more, but they will work as is

look, it fits

I will now take the pickups out of the rings, and just put the mounting plate and ring together.  I can then use them to mark the correct mounting holes in the body

impmann

Nice work, Wez.

It may be a silly bugger method, but I actually like the mechanical simplicity of it.

WezV

The important bit I forgot to mention last night is that the pickup feet need bigger holes for the method above. The screws go straight through to ensure the pickup cannot move up or down within the ring. The nuts will be soldered to the bolts once I am happy with it all.

I went metric for all these parts because it made finding them cheaply a piece of piss.

ICBM

WezV said:

The nuts will be soldered to the bolts once I am happy with it all.

Would it be better to use Nylock nuts to avoid problems in the future if you ever have to take them apart?

WezV

i have been considering that, or just using some threadlock

Skodadad

I love the way every little thing really matters to you. It just keeps getting better

WezV

It got a little worse today when I realised I had not accounted for the thickness of the mounting plate when routing the pickup cavities.

But its all sorted now and the pickups fit nicely

GuitarMonkey

ICBM;954866" said:

Would it be better to use Nylock nuts to avoid problems in the future if you ever have to take them apart?

Gibson uses nylock nuts on the newer guitars.