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

[Mr 9finger]

He takes on creating a guitar in his back garden, but is unable to post pics?!?!?!?!?!

Fabulous stuff crusty! I'm really looking forward to the completed project!

LOL I got a good chuckle out of this!

Nice job Crusty! For the wire channels, I would have gotten a long drill bit and went through the neck pocket for the pickups!

[crusty philtrum]

Kam ... thanks bro, I've got a handle on it now, and can continue putting this together. Your post made it easy and my tits are totally calm now. Thanks again.

Everyone .... glad you're enjoying this adventure, and thanks so much for all the positive comments, it does mean a lot.

Okay, on with the show, now that i can actually show you more .....

[crusty philtrum]

I made a commitment for the exact bridge pickup location and routed it smooth. Then it was time for a little fun to get an idea of where i was going. Still waiting for the new gold pickup covers to arrive at this stage, but i was excited to see my progress.






I also found a temporary way to put a sheen on the top so i could see the carve better and get an idea of how it was progressing. It never ceases to amaze me how the wood looks so different between the various pics. This piece of wood oxidises very quickly .... only a few hours after sanding, it will have already changed colour slightly. The next day the colour becomes noticeable different.

Up until now i have been keeping the pickup plane flat and planned to use flat-bottomed mounting rings, but i bought two sets of rings, both flat-bottomed and curved. I think i will end up using curved ones as the carve looks too harsh alongside the pickup locations at the moment.

[zakk_speed]

Awesome thread and great work crusty - I had to check in before work to see if there were updates.

[crusty philtrum]

There were a few small things to take care of in the lead-up to gluing the neck in. There was a hole at the end of the heel which needed to be plugged to prevent any glue seeping in to the truss rod. I carved a dowel from a bit of one of the body block offcuts and glued it in.

Although i've seen most people simply put a piece of wood between the frets and the clamp when gluing a neck in, i felt uncomfortable about that. I found a steel drum about the right diameter and put a sheet of sandpaper on the side and sanded that curve into a block of scrap wood I'd cut to size. Then i glued a piece of rubber onto the curved surface i'd just created. Next step was to mark out the location of frets 16 through to 22, the section of the neck that will be attached to the body. Then i cut grooves in the rubber to sit over the frets. It works beautifully, it should distribute the pressure evenly onto the fretboard without damaging anything.

I tested this caul out with one clamp, although i will use two when the neck is actually glued in. Even with one clamp, it works superbly and has eliminated some aspects that were of concern.

Now i'm shaping another mahogany offcut from the original block to make the little extra piece required to make the heel deeper....of course with the neck being tilted back, the angle for this piece is less that 90 degrees so i am fiddling about sanding to get the angle right.

About the only thing left to do now is work out what i'm doing for the output jack and perform the necessary woodwork. And of course .... more sanding. There's ALWAYS more sanding.

[crusty philtrum]

Here's the caul in action in a dry run .... it worked beautifully, and a side-benefit was that for the first time i was able to hold the fledgling guitar in the playing position, which was a real buzz, it felt great. I'd describe it as 'a little more in the neck, a little less in the body'. Tapping it caused the entire thing to resonate, and the neck and body seem to resonate similarly. It gave me a real sense of what this guitar might offer if i can complete it without messing anything up too seriously.

[crusty philtrum]

The only remaining major step i had to do on the body was work out what i was going to do for the output jack : I dislike the regular LP location (it makes sitting down with the guitar plugged in with a straight jack plug awkward) and i'd been thinking about some options. I'd narrowed it down to either using a Strat jackplate somewhere, either recessed into the side somewhere or on the back near the control cavity, or an 'Electrosocket' (kinda upgraded Telecaster style 'cup'). The whole idea has been to find a location/jackplate style that would allow me to use a straight jack plug that wouldn't be in the way whether standing or sitting, and would be unlikely to cause problems with most guitar stands.

You'd be amazed at how many little issues were involved in trying to come up with a satisfactory method, particularly knowing i'd have to live with whatever decision i made.

Eventually i came up with something that should work well and look neat too. After hours of checking it out, i decided to use the Electrosocket in a location very close to standard LP location, BUT ... offset the cup so that the jack doesn't exit the side of the guitar 'straight out the side' but at a slight angle, to hopefully eliminate the way a straight jack digs into a chair when playing sitting down/plugged in.

The Electrosocket needs a 7/8" hole, and it has a narrow lip around the outer surface that would require a 1" hole. The trick was going to be drilling into the side of the guitar with the 1" drill, because with the drill angled, the side wanted to start cutting before the cetre point was located. First i drilled a small pilot hole, but when i started with the big drill, it wouldn't stay centred and it drifted toward the front edge.

After all the plotting, planning and two attempts (which involved cutting a plug and filling in the first attempt), i finally got the desired result. I happened to find a very old 1" holesaw with a drill through the middle, and although the saw was seized to the drill, there was enough drill poking out beyond the saw teeth to be able to centre the saw and get the desired angled entry into the wood ( I ran a test attempt on a mahogany offcut first this time). Only problem was that this saw made a hole through the middle and cut the outline, so i was left with a 'donut' of wood which i carved away with a Stanley knife, then cleaned up with a 1" Forstner bit to get a flat bottom. When the 1" recess was done, i went in with a 7/8" Forstner bit and drilled all the way thorough into the control cavity. Fortunately i was able to do that without part of the hole emerging through the front or back of the body, hehe.

The Electrosocket (with a jack screwed into it) fitted perfectly, although i may need to open it up a little bit with sandpaper as it might get a bit tight there once the finish has been applied. The Electrosocket gets secured into the wood with two small screws through the two holes you should be able to see in some of the pics ; it is actually designed as an upgrade for the metal cup that holds the output socket on Telecasters, but it has worked well here and should look discrete and classy. You can see in a couple of the pics how i eventually managed to get an angle so that a straight jack plug won't dig into the chair when sitting down, but the guitar should be able to be stood up or placed in a stand with the lead still plugged in.

A lot of bloody work for a small detail, but i feel sure i'll be glad i managed to do this when i look back in years to come.

[crusty philtrum]

Here's the Electrosocket in place, and you can see how (hopefully) a straight jack plug shouldn't interfere with anything regardless of where the guitar is being played or rested. Plus hopefully it might look a bit more integrated with the design, rather than the 'screwed on the outside' approach of the original design.

[crusty philtrum]

Here's the last mock-up assembly before the neck will get glued in place. I'm not drilling holes to mount the bridge and tailpiece until after the neck is permanently set into the body. That way, even if the neck is not quite straight, the bridge and tailpiece will at least still be in line with the neck ; there should be enough 'wiggle-room' to be able to move the pickups from side to side slightly to ensure good alignment even if the bridge and tailpiece end up slightly off-centre. The bridge pickup would need more movement than the neck pickup if that was the case, and i'd tried to make as much allowance for that as possible.

[crusty philtrum]

Finally the day arrived to glue the guitar neck to the body. In the lead up to this stage i wanted to do as much work on the body as possible, because i know that once the neck is on, working on the body becomes a lot more difficult (moving it into different work positions often means the neck gets banged into the bench, the lamp, shelves and anything else nearby).

Of course every time i thought i was ready to glue i'd find another little detail on the body that i could improve, and that seemed to go on and on and on. But now it's glued in !! I put a steel straight edge along each side of the neck and down along the body, and it looks like it's lined up close to perfectly on the centre line, maybe up to 1/2 a millimetre out but that's okay, better than i could have hoped for.










Now i will leave it for 48 hours before removing the clamps. Then things will start to move along quite quickly and the guitar will get set up with tuners and strings (no electronics) and i will actually be able to play it !! (assuming the glue joint is good and that the neck won't pull off when i tune it up, hehehe). That set-up will only be temporary to allow me to line everything up with the strings, then the hardware will come off again in preparation for the finish.

Getting the neck glued into the body was always the pinnacle of this job ...get it right and i have a good chance to end up with a good instrument ... but get it wrong and i could be in all kinds of difficulty.

Each step of the way still needs care, but this achievement is huge. Not only that, but now it is really the beginning of a musical instrument instead of two pieces of wood living in two cardboard boxes.

[crusty philtrum]

After gluing the neck in and leaving it for a couple of days, I carved a small piece of mahogany to build up the heel. I knew this was never going to be an invisible join because the edges of the flat back of the neck heel had been very slightly rounded over, meaning that even a pefectly tight join would have what would look like a wide seam on the outside. It hasn't helped that i haven't been able to find or create a woodfiller of the right colour. However, i knew this would be the case as soon as the neck arrived, and i have it covered : i will intensify the red stain in the clear lacquer only at the neck join, making it closer to a solid colour at that point, thusly minimising the visibility of the joins.

While i was shaping the little heel extension piece, i slipped with the Stanley knife and lightly cut a finger. I watched as a big blob of blood slowly appeared, and then i did what seemed perfectly obvious .... i wiped the blood all over two surfaces of the little block that was in my other hand, the two surfaces that were to be glued into the body/neck join. So my blood has been embedded into the neck join, hehe. For a brief moment, the wet blood made the perfect cherry red translucent finish, although it quickly soaked into the wood and turned a dull brown kinda colour.

(it's kinda funny that that happened, because a few days back i had this idea about adding a couple of drops of my blood into the red-tinted clear that will cover the guitar, and that may happen).

I marked up the location for the tailpiece and drilled pilot holes for the threaded bushings. I realised i didn't have a big enough drill bit, so i decided to just open the holes up enough so i could just put the tailpiece bolts straight into the wood, and the holes can be made big enough for the steel inserts later when i can get hold of the right drill bit.






That worked fine. Fitted the tuners and i was good to install the two outside 'E' strings. I put a thin sheet of aluminium in front of the tailpiece and put the bridge on it, supported with a couple of carefully-selected nuts to lift the bridge to create some sort of action (highish, but okay to get started). I can slide the bridge around with a little effort, and i used the strings to check out the pickup alignment and a couple of other details.




Then i strung up the remaining four strings, and for the first time, it made sound !! hehe.
I grabbed a humbucker and put it in a ring and slipped it under the strings, fed the wire through and stuck the pickup ring to the front of the guitar with masking tape. I clipped a cable (2 crocodile clips to standard guitar jack plug) to the pickup and i had what i needed ... quick and dirty way to get some signal into the guitar tuner (not enough acoustic sound for it's inbuilt mic ...).

And that's all about finding the exact location for the bridge. Oh joy. Eventually I decided on the best position and marked where i would need to drill the holes for the bridge post bushings.




Anyway, not long ago i realised i'd used the hybrid pickup that Dr.Ad sent me at christmas ; I actually thought i'd picked up my old JB. So i decided to plug it in and have a listen. i don't really want to describe what i've heard because there are several tone-influencing jobs to be done yet (tailpiece threaded bushings into face of guitar, bridge off the aluminium plate and set on it's own posts and inserts, nut slots cut properly, bridge saddles notched, lower action and a finish applied) ; all items that could play a big part in the whole tone concoction.

What i will say is that acoustically it is incredibly resonant and quite loud. But it's evenly resonant all over. There's an articulation to the attack from the harder gold frets and the ebony fretboard, but it's not clinical, and the resonance of the body is just always there .... when i was messing around with tuning, it was amazing how much vibrations were going into my fingers from the tuner buttons.

Plugged in .... things may change as i do the remaining jobs, but whatever this guitar has and will have, it's got it by the bucketload.

I have to accept that this may be the best this guitar ever sounds. It may be tamed a little when the finish is done. But what i've heard so far, even if it lost a little something, it'd still be very very impressive sounding.

man what a trip this is. it seems to keep me stressed out and excited at the same time.

[crusty philtrum]

Time to install the tailpiece and bridge properly now.

The bridge was easy enough, although it was worrysome trying to get the posts to be perfectly aligned so that the action could be adjusted without the posts being slightly angled and causing binding. But it worked out fine.








I drilled a small hole from the tailpiece hole on the treble side into the control cavity for an earth wire to the strings.

[crusty philtrum]

Installing the tailpiece inserts would bring similar potential hazards to the bridge ones ; they need to fit tightly which means as you press them in you are praying that they are straight and that the posts will be straight, otherwise the tailpiece may not fit at all, or may fit but be near impossible to adjust. Fortunately they went in tightly (needed some gentle to moderate persuasion with a hammer, something that always worries me, because if the holes are too tight, it could split the wood .... if they're too big the inserts will be loose (backup plan for that would be to glue them in but i was hoping for metal-to-wood contact without any glue). Anyway, i got them in, screwed in the posts and the tailpiece fitted snugly and adjusts up and down nicely.

It was only after taking the pics and sitting down for a coffee that i realised i had forgotten to put the earth wire into the stud hole nearest the control cavity .... i drilled the hole for it, and thought about it only half an hour before driving the inserts in, and i was going to put a piece of tape next to that hole with 'Earth wire' written on it to remind me ... but i didn't. And i didn't. Damn !!

So i worked out a way to extract that particular insert, install the earth wire and replace the bushing, which would contact the bare earth wire as it was pressed down. It worked out fine and was still a good tight fit. The tailpiece slid on to it's posts perfectly and adjusted up and down without any binding.

I'm really growing to love this thing now, and i'm terrified i'm going to stuff something up. However, if the bridge and tailpiece are okay and keep everything in line, i'm probably past the worst of it. But there is ALWAYS room for something to go wrong. It seems the closer i get, the more frightening it is, although of course it's very exciting too. The big problem for me is that i am not skilled at this stuff, and where an expert would do each stage cleanly and move on, i always create a bunch of minor side-issues that have to be dealt with.

Like forgetting the earth wire.

[crusty philtrum]

Next it was time to get everything attached and screwed down that needed to be done before the finish work begins. The pickup covers on the guitar in these pics are old spares that were laying around, i have 2 new gold ones here that will be used on the final assembly.

I temporarily hooked up the neck pickup again to check the harmonics (bridge location) and of course i had to plug it in and hear it again, this time with the bridge and tailpiece attached properly. Great great sound, piano-like bass strings, mellow trebles with chime and awesome sustain, very very even sound. If anything i thought the precise accuracy of attack could be toned down a fraction to let more of the resonance dominate the attack, but then i realised that the pickup was wired straight to the amp, with no pots or tone cap, so i think when they're wired in properly with their controls, that will even it out just nicely. Of course the pickup was just taped in with no regard to height or pole piece heights, it was really only to drive the tuner. Also the finish will have some effect on what i've heard so far.

And this guitar felt GREAT ....

The next step will be to get the first coat of sealer on the wood. I discovered the stuff i have can be brushed on, so that's what i'll do. I'll still need to set the compressor up to blow the body clean after the final sanding.

I'm excited. Over-tired and somewhat stressed, but excited as hell. Now i just hope i get a few decent days that will suit spraying.

[crusty philtrum]

The image on the right of the pic is the closest online mock-up to what i wanted to achieve, although i wasn't able to dial in exactly the colours i wanted. The one on the left is my LP that i refinished the front of. I will be using exactly the same red and black tinters in the lacquer for this guitar, but instead of the red being over a gold metallic base to create a candy-apple finish, it will be over the wood so the grain will show through. But it gives you (and me) an idea of what i'm aiming for.

[stevie_bees]

Can you build me one next??

[crusty philtrum]

The keystone/tulip buttons arrived from Germany, so i fitted them to the tuners and put them on the headstock for a couple of quick pics .... difficult to get good pics of the gold. I definitely think the shape looks better, maybe the gibson image is so strong that nothing else seems right, but whatever the reason, i like these ones better. Just as well too considering the hassle and expense, but to me it's worth the trouble.




I've done a lot more fine work on the body and got rid of those dark marks that were there. I have made dozens of colour mixes for woodfiller but never got it right, so there's one place where that had to be used and it's visble but better than it was (will be covered in the final finish but this may have to live with just a coat of clear until next spring/ summer).

[crusty philtrum]

Can you build me one next??

I'm not sure what little health and sanity i might have had could bear any more builds like this, hehe. Mind you, i'm sure the first time de-mystifies the processes and a second one would be a lot less intimidating. What would be cool would be building two at the same time.

I know there are some guys here who build guitars from scratch and who would make me look like an amateur butcher. I bet they're having a smile at this, as they should. But underneath all the stress and research, planning and mistakes, it's a lot of fun and i'm hoping to end up with something that's at least special to me, if to no-one else. So far this has taken about six months and the total cost has run out to about $1200 in parts, and several hundred more in tools and other materials.

[MetalManiac]

Mad Mad Skilz! One of the greatetst projects I've ever witnessed here. Pretty good. Ok. not bad.

[stevie_bees]

I'm planning on going on a guitar building course as part of my resettlement when I leave the RAF. Hopefully having an experienced luthier on hand will demystify a lot of techniques and tips for me, and I'll avoid any pitfalls. This has become my new favourite thread!