lets build another guitar

[tzsteve]

yes i know it`s the wrong forum.

but, this is the forum that i`m in.



the work on this was done according to what i had available at the time and acording to what glued pieces i was waiting to dry.
so the build does not follow a logical order.

i fancied making a new guitar,
a nice little les paul.

but making it a little different.

the Gibson  les paul is the worlds best selling guitar ever made and at only 2800 is not a cheap toy.
the genuine item has a mahogany body with a maple front the neck is made from mahogany with a rosewood frett board.

a few were made in the 80`s with a cherry body and maple front but these were an expencive limited edition.

the standard item has a neck that is fitted into the body with a mortice and tennon joint this a great way to make a guitar as it makes manufacture cheaper and simpler in a factory situation.

i fancied a neck through body version as this, it is claimed gives a better tone ( i dont know ) but a neck through the body looks nice and eliminates the neck joint making a stronger guitar.

i also fancied a top of the range whammy bar but these need a special fitting at the end of the neck.

this fitting ( the end nut ) is held in place with a couple of screws this means that the neck is weaker than normal due to the screw holes.

to overcome this weakness i wanted to include some carbon fiber in the neck.

so a few pictures
I`ll expand on this as and when I get the time








the neck was made from a piece of rock maple that had already had a lute neck cut from it.

by splitting the neck lenghthwise and gluing in a splice of mahogany i could make my neck timber wider and by including some carbon fiber and epoxy resin in the glue-line i could make the neck much stronger.






the neck sections were planed true, then cross cut with a saw and the little blocks knocked out, simple stuff.



the body was made from a few pieces of cherry cut from a single quarter sawn lump.








once the pieces of cherry had been squared up they were glued together with a couple of pieces of scrap wood to hold the good timber in place while it was being routed to shape.

the scrap wood was later removed leaving a 56mm wide gap to take the neck section.





at this time i returned to the neck and did the gluing of the three neck sections, messy but easy.
then back to the body while the glue on the neck dried



an mdf pattern screwed to the body timber so that I had a profile to work to

just cut a few slices around the edge and knock out the scrap then set to with the router





the template removed after the routing work



now the body gets glued to the neck and it takes on the shape of a guitar





the headstock is too narrow so a couple of pieces of scrap maple get glued and clamped to the sides



a little planing then glue on the headstock front veneer this is just a piece of ebony planed and sanded to 3.5mm thick



time to start on profiling the neck just a couple of rasps to get a rough shape 



now make a start on the fret board  this starts as a 10mm rough sawn piece of ebony and get planed and sanded to about 6.5mm  and has a radius of about 12 inches planed on the playing side



next job is the fret slots and the position markers
fret slots are marked and cut to 0,6mm wide and about 2.5mm deep the frets will be hammered or pressed into these slots later

the position markers are mother of pearl and need a recess to fit into
cutting the MOP inlays was done on the band saw then the edges were sanded to the finished size on the disk sander




to make the recess for these to set in I need a cnc router ( no chance of that ) so I set the piller dril up to cut to a depth of 1.5mm when I stood on the socket wrench that was tied to the drill feed handle










to hide any glue line I mixed some araldite, black sanding dust and some black paint pigment together this is the standard way of doing this
all the inlays are now fitted and then the front of the fret board is given a little bit of a sanding



I think it looks ok

so back to the wood work and I do the profile for the headstock and cut some holes through the body for the control knobs etc



paste a template to the front to help with the shaping






now its time to drill the holes for the tuners and fit a decal of some type to the front of the headstock








the recess for the inlay was cut with a mini grinder and a couple of chisels 



that will do

so now I carry on making the holes in the body and do a bit more work on the neck profile








a little bit with the router to allow the wires to go thrugh the guitar body

[tzsteve]

continuing the saga

now I need to fit the guitar front

I had been searching for a nice front for a couple of months

I found a really nice piece of maple in the states that worked out at £2200 including post and import tax
that was never going to happen

I also found lots of suitable pieces at about £200 these were all rough sawn and needed a lot of work

I then found a guitar factory that makes les pauls who would supply a fully contoured front in nice maple for £155

its insane the price of top quality maple that has been cut in the right way











now to make some more holes in the body for the whammy bar and pickups.
the whammy bar needs a large cut out in the back for the springs and a recess at the front 







at this point I have also changed the truss rod for a better type









I fancy a wood cover on the back of the guitar plastic is cheap and easy to get but I think the wood could look more interesting
I saved the scrap from the back of the head stock but by the time I had got one side nice and flat it was as little as 0.75mm thick in places so I thickened and strengthened it with some carbon fibre ( I love this stuff )





I just need to fish the hole here for the whammy bar springs





just shape this and cut to thickness ill laminate another piece on the inside to improve the strength etc



the next bit of work was quite awkward I need to cut a double lip round the front of the guitar this will hold the binding this is to protect the guitar from small knocks etc and also provides a decorative feature.

this can be done with a pin router or spindle router but I don't have one of those toys so I again set up my piller drill to do the jobs it was not designed for.
the result was not bad I just need to do a little tidying up round the edges



I did a little contour work on the back les pauls do not have this feature but it helps with the belly bump
I used a nice little angle grinder with an 80 grit flap disk for this. the job took 5 minutes or so



while I wait for the binding to arrive I will continue doing a little sanding etc
the binding comes from china at £2.70 inc postage I can by the identical item from a uk specialist supplier for only£18 plus £8 postoge
nice mark up if you can get it I suppose 

the job is basically at stand still for now but I do have the paint etc ready for spraying this

[dazzz]

Amazing Job Steve , attention to detail , can’t wait to see it finished and played

[tzsteve]

thanks mate,
I`m very good at hiding and covering the mistakes

[triffid]

You Sir, are truly talented, very very nice work

[tzsteve]

so a couple of weeks ago I ordered some binding from 3 different suppliers in china in the hope that one of them would send the stuff early

all of them sent the wrong stuff ( deliberate miss advertising )  so refunds requested and I made do with some of the stuff I already had in the attic



right a couple of pictures to start with

this is my coil winding machine its simply a 12 volt drill motor and power supply in a big box

the controls are speed and forward or reverse

the spindle has a self aligning bearing at the business end and the other end of the spindle is stuck to the motor shaft with Loctite 
the motor bolts to a plate of 10 mm aluminium and the bearing at the business end is fitted into another piece of aluminium
at the business end I have a piece of aluminium glued to the spindle with Loctite  ( easy )
the rotor has a small magnet pushed into a hole, this triggers the 2 hall switches for the speed counter and turns counter ( easy )

if you use some imagination you could work out how its all put together
and figure out how to make one if you plan to make a bunch if electronic ignition coils ? ?





so making a couple of pickups
my assorted pickup bits



i need to drill the base plates to take the magnets that im using



then the bobbins are stuck to the winding machine rotor with a bit of double sided tape
i did drill some bolt holes in the rotor but the tape works fine



the wire here is 43 awg or 0.0022 inch its about half the size of what is used for ignition coils
i just use a light finger and thumb grip to feed the wire between the guides and the 500 gram spool sits on the floor ( easy )
I start slow and work up to 1200 RPM and slow down before stopping

a pickup just about ready for soldering to the lead out wires



there are a few different way to assemble the pickups
this is the way i did one its like 2 standard strat types side by side

the other was built as a standard humbucker
the choice of the magnet type and the thickness of the wire change the tone and power output of the pickups
im hoping for a blues tone from one pickup and a more modern pop / rock sound from the other


so back to the woodwork

the plastic binding ( trim ) is glued to the wood using airfix type glue and some none stretchy tape
a small gap is left and filled with anything that the glue will not stick to  ...  this is removed when the glue is set







this Methyl Ethyl Ketone (MEK) is used to make plumbers pvc cement and melts the plastics together

so when its all dry and hardened i just scrape and sand the trim flush with the guitar body



at this stage im just testing the alignment and position of the fret board

then glue and clamp

and to clamp it while its gluing i just tie plenty of string round the neck and tighten it with a few pencils lie a tourniquet and one big clamp on the body



i still have a little cleaning up to do on the guitar and the fretting etc. to finish
then it should be ready for painting

[henri]

looking good , very good carpentry skills . H

[tzsteve]

thanks H,


 i had a bit of time this morning before the daily shift at work so what i have done here is
fit the frets this involves
dressing the fretboard with some candle wax,
hammering in the frets,
then sealing the fret slots with some super glue, this stops them coming loose in the next 20 years or so.

the frets when they are fitted have a sharp spike sticking out this is filed square to the edge of the fretboard
and the excess glue from fitting the fretboard is removed 
just simple jobs with a file and the point of a sharp knife to remove the glue residue

when I was banging in the frets 2 pieces of the ebony chipped away luckily I found both pieces and just stuck them back with some super glue





most of the wax residue has been scraped off here

 
now I can start fitting the binding to the fretboard
this is simply glued using an airfix type glue
I can only fit one side at a time so I`ll clean this up and fit the rest tomorrow





the patch that needs cleaning up was a patch that I touched before all the glue on the edge binding had set
leaving a couple of thumb prints and dents in the binding


this was simply solved by mixing some scrap plastic and a bit of MEK to make a white gloop and then dabbing it on the edge
its still a bit soft so I`ll clean this tomorrow

I think the fake shell inlay looks ok
and its almost ready for painting

[tzsteve]

the clear tape that I used to fit the fake shell inlay?
has anyone seen this at a reasonable price?

I know 1 or 2 firms use it as parcel tape

[tzsteve]

a lot of work on the frets today



this is trimming the binding along the fretboard leaving little nibs at the fret ends



the frets have now been filed level along the fretboard and are then radiused using a special file

and after 5 hours today this is what the guitar looks like
I still have a bit of cleaning up to do then its spraying time

[dazzz]

It’s looking great mate , looking forward to hearing how it sounds.

[leon]

Looks fantastic mate. I can play guitar but I couldn't make one to save my life. My dad used to make them but doesn't have the workshop space anymore.

Looking forward to seeing the finished article.

[tzsteve]

I was going to post some pics of the paint job today but the gremlins in my house have hidden my camera and I cant find it

bugger

[tzsteve]

right I found the camera the gremlins had hidden it on top of the fridge 
obviously they knew where I would look last


so a couple of hours this morning




all this needs to be fitted



and this is what the front looks like now


I still have all the wiring to sort out
I also need to get a couple of gold screws etc
and a gold cover for one of the pickups
and a couple of other little bits still need fitting

and a number of adjustments to get it to play in tune and feel right

despite a number of small mistakes I think it looks ok
……………………………….

and the differences between this and the genuine item are

maple neck laminated with carbon fiber
neck through body construction
ebony fretboard
25.5 inch scale length not 24.75
cherry body
custom wound pickups
only 2 controls not 4
the controls are sunk into the guitar front not proud
a 5 position selector switch not 3
jack socket on the front not the side
Grover machine heads not Kluson
and the expensive Floyd rose whammy bar and locking end not

[triffid]

fantastic effort Steve you should be rightly proud of that

[tzsteve]

thanks triffid got the string side of it sorted and close to right then I did the wiring and got that almost right
tomorrow I`ll get it all as it should be

minus the few gold bits still in the post from china

[Mel]

Great work Ste, 🥰

[tzsteve]

from you mate, that means a lot

[Mel]

Sept 25, 2019 16:19:33 GMT tzsteve said:

from you mate, that means a lot

😂✊😘

[thatguitarguy]

In case anyone is wondering what Steve's guitars are like to play - well I just purchased one of his guitars and I can tell you it's great !
The build quality is really nice - the neck joint is so comfy I don't understand why anyone would do them differently to this. The one I bought is an (almost) SG - it's a bit quirky lol. It has 3/4 pickups depending on how you see it (2 humbuckers and 2 single coil strat pickups wired together), and a tail/bridge from an old Ibanez Iceman, which really gives it a vintage look. Finish is natural with tons of figuring in the wood.
I only just got her, so it's early days, but so far I've really enjoyed making her sing - playing mostly Steve Howe / Steve Hackett riffs so far it just does it Honestly the neck is a little fat for me, but of course that's personal preference and in no way reflects on the build quality. (also I'm injured right now due to my cat biting me during worming, so that doesn't help lol).
Overall I'm super happy with this guitar, and I'd like to thank Steve for bringing her into this world ! Good on ya, yas !