Crusty Builds A Les Paul (How Not To Build A Guitar....)

[ErikH]

Coming down the home stretch.

[muttznmongrelz]

Bad To The Bone! Some damn fine work. WOW!

[eschoendorff]

Man, the finish line is in view! Cannot wait to see and hear this monster!

[drpietrzak]

This is really, really looking good. It makes me want to try another build. The only problem is I have not talent!

[Laughing Kookaburra]

That is looking fantastic!

Coming down the home stretch.

+1 mate!

[Will S-T]

You guys wanna see Neil's amps, this is the quality workmnanship
he does on a guitar, then behold what he does to an amp

That's his specialty

Friggin awesome, beyond doubt

[GoldenVulture]

Anticipating...

[crusty philtrum]

Okay. After a couple of days of fine sanding and cutting and polishing,(and some small repairs after dropping a hammer onto the top between the bridge and bridge pickup, dammit !), the finish was about as good as it was going to get and it was time to start the assembly. Despite the fact that the guitar had been fully assembled before the finishing process began, I had no intention of taking the final assembly lightly, and i knew there would most likely be a bunch of small details to attend to.

During the process, I snapped this shot with the pickup assemblies sitting in place just before drilling the holes for the mounting-ring screws.




In order to locate the pickups centrally under the strings, i had to fit the tuners and strings .....




Next came the pots, knobs and pickup selector switch ....

[crusty philtrum]

Eventually the assembly was finished and I wired it up .... 500K CTS pots, 2 volumes, master tone with a NOS Sprague Vitamin Q paper-in-oil cap. Tests told me that the pickups were in phase and everything seemed to be working properly. At this stage i was in no fit state to make any sensible assesments about the sound, I knew i needed a week or two to adjust to the fact that the build was basically complete, and i had a long-distance drive coming up (see next post).

Anyway, i took some pics of her here at home ....

[crusty philtrum]

I had to attend a friend's wedding reception in Sydney, New South Wales only a few days after assembling the guitar. I drove the 900 Kilometres (about 550 miles) with the new guitar lovingly sleeping on the back seat in her new Hiscox case. An interesting coincidence at the wedding reception was that he had hired a solo guitarist/singer to provide mellow music for the event who turned out to be my old guitar teacher from way back in 1973-5 ! I had a great time catching up with him during his breaks, hearing about a successful stint he had with an Aussie showband that did very well for themselves in Las Vegas for a long time many years ago. Unfortunately i hadn't taken the new build with me so i wasn't able to show it to him, but now i have his contact details and will keep in touch.


While in Sydney, i got to catch up with some old guitar-playing mates, who basically went straight to the core of the entire build project by simply playing it. (At this stage it was only set up roughly as there hadn't been enough time to attend to the finer details).

You might notice in some of the pics that there is a piece of black wire insulation on the top E string at the tailpiece. Twice during assembly the top E broke at the tailpiece and i guessed there is a sharp edge on the hole in the tailpiece which will need to be smoothed next time the strings come off, but the piece of wire insulation has stopped the breaking until it's time to change the strings and allow me access to make the necessary adjustment.

These pics were taken at my old friend Greg's farm a couple of hours south of Sydney. Sea, trees and sun gave me some good backdrops. I hadn't trimmed the strings at the tuners because I still may need to take them on and off for any minor adjustments during the early settling-in period.

[crusty philtrum]

Now I'm back at home in Melbourne and ready to start fine-tuning her. The sound is beautiful, concise and clear but full-bodied and resonant. I haven't even properly adjusted the pickup heights or pole pieces yet but already the quality of the sound shines through. It will probably remain a work in progress for a little while as the guitar settles ... neck, finish etc. and of course i have to get used to her. But so far it's very impressive, I couldn't have hoped for a better outcome. The playability is good, although i think i can improve it with a little time and effort. Basically i think it's now like when you buy a great guitar from a music store and take it home to get used to it before making those little adjustments that personalise it to your exact requirements. But even as she is now, i am thrilled at the outcome, and still getting used to the fact that she exists at all.

[zakk_speed]

Awesome Crusty - she looks fantastic. Congratulations on a great idea incredibly well executed.

[Ventilator]

Wow. Congratulations on the successful build, Crusty.

I want one.

[stevie_bees]

Fantastic stuff Crusty, you have built yourself a beautiful instrument. Congrats!

[ericmeyer4]

You sir win the SD forum and the entire internet.

[JOLLY]

All that work, and you couldn't even cut the guitar strings at the tuners.

[crusty philtrum]

All that work, and you couldn't even cut the guitar strings at the tuners.

Hahahaha, yes, in hindsight i should have trimmed them for the pics, but to be honest my mind is still in 'build mode' and i kinda have this feeling that i may have to take the strings off at any minute to make some alteration or adjustment, and it's much easier to do that if the strings haven't been cut to length.

In fact sometimes i wonder exactly when i will consider this guitar to be completely finished, hehe. I'm in a strange phase at the moment, still coming to grips with the fact that she actually exists as a complete musical instrument.

But apparently i've won the entire SDUGF and the internet, so now i must try to make some space in here to fit it all in. I'm not sure that my spare room is going to be big enough .....

[GoldenVulture]

Incredible! That finish is extrordinary.

[JordanM82]

One of the best build threads, ever... Amazing work man, something to truly be proud of... way to go....

[ErikH]

That is absolutely stunning. Major kudos on a job well done.