Black Burst and Top Coats

Now that the color coat is on, it's time for the black burst. In order to minize color bleed, I sprayed a few coats of shellac over the enitre guitar. Once completed, I masked the entire guitar except for the top.

For the burst color, I mixed black pigment with the waterbased lacquer that I was using for the top coat. Before getting near the guitar, I practiced the burst on scraps. My original plan was to use a template that was smaller than the guitar and raised off of the surface to produce the vignette. I found this method difficult to use since it was difficult to determine the size and height of the template. Even though my spray gun does not have an adjustable fan width, it worked very nicely for spraying the burst.

The standard technique (which I used) is to spray at a 45 degree angle from the inside to the outside of the piece. I started by spraying past the edge and slowly working my way in using short bursts and always keeping the gun moving.

After applying the black burst, the color tone of the guitar became really dark. It is slightly darker than I had envisioned, but it looks great to me.

The back, sides, and neck also came out surprisingly well. After applying the dye, I wasn't convinced that the color would be even enough. Due to the overall dark tone of the back and sides, the color blends nicely.

I applied around 10 clear coats of waterbased lacquer. I think I sanded with 400 grit paper after the 7th or 8th coat. The lacquer had a lot more orange peel than I expected, but this can be taken care of during the polishing process.

Front with Clear Coats

Back with Clear Coats

Polishing the Finish

In order to achieve a truly high gloss finish, it is necessary to rub out the finish using ever smaller grits (smaller in size, not number designation). After waiting the recommended 100 hours for the finish to cure, I started by wet-sanding the enitre guitar using 600 grit paper. Once the finish was evenly dull, I moved up to 1000 grit and then 2000 grit.

After the sanding is complete, I used Meguiar's Professional Polish, followed by Mequiar's Swirl Remover. I applied these by hand since I haven't replaced my buffer since I let the smoke out of it a few years ago. In the future, I might re-buff it with a machine, but for now it looks fine to me.

Top Coat Polished

Add the Hardware and String it Up

The final step is to add the hardware and set everything up. I started by wiring the electronics. The wiring diagram I received with the electronics kit was a little confusing at first because it didn't really tell you where to start. Since the jack went straight to the switch, I decided to start there. The only issue I ran into was that I used too much of the shielded wire between the switch and the jack. I had just enough left over to wire the switch to the volume pots. By just enough, I mean just enough. I had to rotate the pot just right and do the soldering with the pot in place. There is not much slack at all in the wire. I was a little concerned that the wire would break, but since the parts are stationary, they shouldn't see any stress. I will pick up more wire the next time I place an order from Stew Mac.

During the wiring process, I applied a few coats of boiled linseed oil to the fret board, which, with the frets, I had polished with a grey and then white synthetic pad.

After finishing the wiring, I mounted the bridge, tailpiece, and tuners, and added the nut and strings. I measured the string height and the 1st fret and sanded the bottom of the nut until the heigh was 2/64" on the low side and 1/64" on the high side. During the process, I also brought the strings close to the proper height at the 12th fret (5/64" low side, 3/64" high side). I tweaked the truss rod just a bit to get the neck relief at the 7th fret around 0.010", and made the final adjustments to the string height. Once these steps were completed, I glued the nut in place with a drop of super glue and then set the intonation.

Finished Guitar

Finished Guitar

Much to my surprise, the everything worked perfectly when I plugged it in for the first time. I'm very impressed with the pick-ups (Golden Age Overwound at the bridge and GOlden Age Regular at the neck, both from Stew Mac). The guitar plays and sounds very well. When I have some free time, I will attempt to record and post a sound clip.

I've learned quite a bit from the process and I'm looking forward to building another (probably an acoustic). The build went a lot quicker and expected. What I thought would be the most difficult parts (shaping the neck and carving the top), were not too difficult.

In the end, it was definitly worth the time and expense. I can't wait to build another.

Color the Body

In order to better match the finish on the top, as well as add color to the pale mahogany body, I decided to color the mahogany with a dye stain. Using Transtint Liquid Dyes with water, I mixed 1 part Red Mahogany and 1 part Red with 16 parts water. I applied the dye to the mahogany with a cotton cloth. Once I acheived an even coat, I let it dry for several hours. Unfortunatly, the dye would not absorb into the wood in the area near the horn where the binding was repaired. I went back and sanded and scraped the area more carefully to ensure that I removed all of the binding repair glue from the wood. I double checked the area by wiping it with mineral spirits and checking for variations in the surface.

After I was satisfied with the rework, I mixed another batch of dye and attempted to re-color the repaired area. The area now accepted the dye, but it was necessary to go over the entire body again because the new batch of dye was slightly different in color. As you can see in the picture, the dye does not color the pores of the wood. Generally, these can be colored with a pore filler, or an oil stain.

Guitar with Mahogany Dyed

Body with Mahogany Dyed

After letting the dye dry for a few more hours, I applied the grain filler. For the grain filler, I went with a mixture of boiled linseed oil and 4F pumice. To start, I coat the mahogany with oil and sprinkle pumice on one section at a time. After adding a little more oil, I worked the pumice/oil mixture into the pores with a cotton cloth. Once the pores are filled, I use a clean cloth to wipe away the excess mixture. The mixture of pumice and oil, as well as some sawdust that is generated by the pumice, will take about 72 hours to cure in the pores and will appear translucent when finished. This method gives a very natural looking filled finish.

Due the sides changing from end grain to long grain and back to end grain, the mahogany came out with a dark color variations. These could have been evened out had a I spent a lot more time sanding the sides. However, I decided that the variations give the mahogany an aged look, so I'm going to accept it as my design intent (I made the rules, so I can break them too).



Coloring the Top

The maple on the top does not require grain filling due to the maple being a closed pore wood. In order to enhance the grain of the figured maple, I began the coloring process using 1 part black dye to 6 parts water. Since dye absorbs into end grain deeper than the face grain, I can sand back the black dye and it will only remain in the figure of the maple (which happens to be end grain).

Top Dyed Black

I used 150 grit paper on my random orbit sander to remove most of the dye. Once the majority of the dye was removed, I switched to 220 grit paper and finished sanding. For the top color, I used the same colors and ratio as I did on the mahogany. My original intent was to finish the guitar without coloring it, but after seeing an example of a red dyed figured top, I couldn't resist.

Top Dyed Red

Next up, the burst and top coats...

Fret Shaping

With the neck glued in place, I can finish the work on the frets. To begin, I placed a notched wooden straight edge on the fretboard and adjusted the truss rod until the neck was flat. The notches were cut in the straight edge so each notch would straddle a fret. Once the neck was flat, I applyed masking tape to wood between each fret and marked the top of each fret with a black marker.

After applying a small amount of honing oil to a medium grit oilstone, I moved the oilstone up and down the fretboard while moving in a figure-8 or circular motion. The key was to allow the stone to follow the radius of the fret while moving the length of the fretboard. I continued this process until the black marker was removed from the length of each fret. Overall, this process was fairly simple. I did have 1 low fret end that required extra leveling of all the frets. This low fret end was most likely caused by me over-hammering it into place to ensure the end did not stick up. If, or more likely, when I build another guitar, the fretting process should go much smoother since I now have some experience.

Now that the frets are level I remarked the tops of each fret witha black marker and began to recrown each fret. With the crowning file, the edges of each fret are filed back to a curved profile, being careful not to file the top of the fret, which would require me to reflatten all of the frets. The crowning is complete when there is a thin line of black marker left on each fret.

Crowning the Frets

To finish the fret shaping, I used the crowning file to knock down the sharp edges left by beveling the fret ends. There are special files available for this job, but so far, I am happy with the way the fret ends came out using the crowning file. If I experience any issues down the road, I can always reshape the ends.

Fret Ends Shaped

Fitting the Nut

The final step before stringing the guitar for the first time is to shape the nut and cut slots for the strings. I'm using a Tusq nut (synthetic material that simulates bone) that has been roughly shaped for a Gibson fretboard. The thickness and top profile is already shaped, so I marked the necessary width and filed the nut down until it was close. I remounted the nut and blended it to match the width and profile of the neck.

Next, I removed the nut and measured the final width. To calculate string spacing, I entered the string guages, nut width, and spacing from the ends into a spreadsheet that I created. The spreadsheet gives the location of each string based on a even spacing between strings, as opposed to an even spacing between centerlines of strings.

Using a set of calipers, I marked each string location with a marking knife and proceeded to saw a shallow slot at each mark. To saw the slot, I used homemade nut saws. The saws were made by cutting notches on the edge of a set of feeler gauges. This allowed me to cut the slot to the exact size of the string. To finish the slot, I used a set of welding tip cleaners to put a rounded profile at the bottom of the slot.

Nut "Saws" and "Files"

I was pleasantly surprised with how well this worked. This saved quite a bit of money considering nut files are about $16 per file (need 6 total). I had a set of feeler gauges, and the welding tip cleaners were about $3 for the set. I'm sure if harder materials are used for the nut, these tools may not be sufficient, but for now, they worked perfectly.

I also began to lower the height of the nut using 150 grit sandpaper. I will do the final height adjustment during the setup when the finishing is complete.

Nut Completed

String It Up

With the nut shaped and the frets leveled and crowned, I re-installed the bridge, tailpiece, tuners, and nut, and began stringing the guitar for the first time. I'm confident in my workmanship, but I was still a little nervous bringing the strings to tension. Once brought to tension, I noticed quite a bit of string buzz, so I began to perform a rough setup. Once I adjusted the truss rod so the neck would have a bit of relief, the buzz disappeared. I also lowered the nut a little more and adjusted the bridge height, just to see how things looked.

Guitar Strung Up

During the process, I had to re-tune several times due to the adjustments I was making, as well as the neck and strings settling in. Once the tuning was somewhat stable, I headed inside to play it "acoustically" for awhile, as the electronics won't be installed until after the finishing is complete.

Even though I wasn't plugged in, I was amazed at how well the guitar felt and sounded. For an electric, the acoustic sound and volume was incredible. It was so loud that my wife wanted me to quit playing it because she was afraid it would wake up the kids, although a quick listen from their rooms verified that it wasn't that loud. Overall, it was definitely louder than my other electrics (obviously nowhere near my acoustic though).

The guitar played so well, that I contemplated leaving it be, on the threat of srewing it up. But alas, I decided to carry-on and remove the strings and hardware.


Pick-Up Rings, Pickgaurd, and Strap Buttons

Before the final sanding and finishing, I shaped and mounted the pick-up rings. Since the pick-up plane has a slight curve, the rings need to be shaped to fit the curve. The rings are flexible enough to follow the curve, but flexing them left some areas with a gap between the ring and the body. To match the curve, I taped a piece of sandpaper over the mounting location and sanded the pick-up ring to match the curve. They didn't come out exact, but the flexibility of the rings took care of any discrepancy. Once shaped, I marked the screw locations, drilled pilot holes, and mounted the pick-ups.

Shaping the pick-up ring

After the pick-ups were mounted, I installed the pickguard. This was pretty straightfoward. I loosely installed the bracket to the guard and put the guard into position on the body. The pickguard fit snugly between the pick-up rings and pretty much fell into place. I mark and drilled pilot holes, and installed the screws.

Pickguard Attached

Last, but not least, I installed the strap buttons. Instead of traditional strap buttons, I went with Dunlop Straplocks. I've had these installed on my Strat for a number of years, and have been happy with them.


Sanding

To prepare for the finish, I used a random orbit sander to progress from 100 to 150 to 220 grit on the flat areas of the guitar. For the maple top, I stopped at 150 grit since the top will be resanded during the dye application. Next, I proceeded to hand sand the curved areas with 150 anf 220 grit paper backed with duct tape. I also hand sanded the flat areas with 220 to eliminate any sanding marks. I also went over the headstock inlays with both a grey and white scotchbrite pad to eliminate sanding scratches and bring up the shine.

Once complete, I removed the excess sanding dust and masked the top, headstock, and the fretboard, leaving only the mahogany exposed for the first step in finishing.

Finishing is next...

Body and Neck Become One

After the frets were in place and the ends were trimmed, I used a fret-end file to bring the fret ends flush to the binding. Once flush, I used the angled side of the fret-end file to put a 20 degree bevel on the fret ends. The bevel on the ends of the frets allows the fretting hand to glide smoothly along the length of the neck. A 20 degree angle is fairly steep, but I was concerned that a greater angle would reduce the playing surface of the fret too much. It is easier to increase the bevel angle if needed, rather than replace the frets if the angle turns out to be to much.

Before gluing the neck to the body, I fitted the tuners and drilled holes for the mounting screws. I also installed the truss rod cover. On a hunch, I ordered an extra truss-rod cover screw, and it turns out that I needed it. Even after drilling a pilot hole in the ebony headstock veneer, it was very difficult to cut threads for screw. By the time I was done with both holes, the head of the screw was mangled. Luckily, it held together for both, so I can use the 2 remaining screws for the cover.

It's a good woodworking practice to dry clamp a joint prior to applying glue. This allows you to work out any clamping or fit issues before its too late. Once completed, I disassembled the joint, applied glue to the mortise and tenon, and then assembled and clamped the joint. Generally, a good fitting joint can be difficult to assemble after applying glue. This is due to the water-based glue causing the wood to swell slightly. In this case though, the swelling was minimal and the glue acted as a lubricant to allow the joint to slide togther easily.

I removed the clamps after letting the glue cure overnight.

Neck Glued to Body

Binding Repair Revisited

Now that the neck is glued in place, I could go back and trim the body binding flush to the neck. Since there was quite a bit of binding to remove, I masked the the neck binding until I was ready for the final blending. The excess binding was removed with a half-round file and a scraper. The scraper removes the binding very quickly and smoothly, but it was difficult to use near the ends and in the tighter portion of the curve. As I got close to the fretboard, I removed the masking tape and did the final blending. Aside from a little dicoloration, the repair came out very well and nearly seamless. I may use a heat gun to remove the discoloration, but I'm nervous about ruining something else in the process, so we'll see.

Binding Repair Complete

Grounding the Bridge

Prior to installing the bushings for the bridge and tailpiece, a ground wire should be run from the tailpiece bushing hole to the control cavity, where it will be soldered to the back of a control pot. This will ground the tailpiece, and subsequently the strings, to prevent hum when playing through an amp. To drill the hole for the wire, I used a 1/8" drill bit that was 12" long.

Hole for the Bridge Ground

The proper way to connect the wire to the tailpiece bushing is to strip the isulation from the end, run the wire, and then install the bushing so it pinches the wire against the wood as it is being installed. This sounds like a good plan, but in practice it didn't work out well for me. I knew in advance that this probably wouldn't work out, so I did some research and discovered the ball point pen trick.

The trick is to solder the spring of a ball point pen onto the tailpiece end of the ground wire. The wire is then run so the spring stands vertically in the bushing. When the screw for the tailpiece in run down, it compresses against the spring and grounds the tailpiece.

After running the wire and inserting the tailpiece screw, I verified that there was continuity between the wire in the control cavity and tailpiece screw. You can just see the top spring in the lower right bushing.

Bridge Bushings Installed

That's all for now...

Drilling for Control Shafts and Bridge Bushings

While the neck is still free from the body, the holes for the bridge and control pots are drilled. To begin, I drilled a 3/32" hole through the center locations on the body and control plate template. I temporarily attached the templates to the body and used a 3/32" bit and a light tap of a hammer to mark the locations of the control pot shafts and the pickup selector switch.

Marking the Control Pot Shaft Locations

After removing the template, I used a 3/8" bit in the drill press to drill the holes for the control pot shafts. Since the body is curved at these locations, it was necessary to shim the body on the drill press table in order to drill the hole square to the surface. Due to the ever changing contour, it is not possible to square in all directions, so the key was to get it as close as possible.

Since the control cavity has a flat base, it was necessary to relieve the underside of the holes at an angle, so the control pot sits against a flat surface. This step is done with a forstner bit, but finding the correct angle is difficult. In order to cut the relief properly, I inserted the shaft of a 3/4" forstner bit trough the hole with the cutting portion of the bit in the control cavity. Next, I chucked the bit into a drill and used the top side of the forstner bit to cut the relief. The cut went fairly slow, since the bit is not designed to cut backwards.

I repeated this drilling procedure for the pickup selector switch. The switch required a 1/2" mounting hole. This allowed me to use a larger forstner bit to relieve the underside. Since the switch is not height adjustable, the relief was cut deeper. After defining the angle with the top of the bit, I flipped the body over and drilled the rest of the relief with the bottom of the forstner bit.

Once the control shaft holes were complete, I refitted the neck and measured for the bridge location. In theory, the 12th fret should be exactly halfway between the nut and the bridge. However, due to the bending of the strings when being fretted, and the difference in string thicknesses, the bridge must be set back in order to acheive the correct intonation. After measuring and adding compensation, I discovered that I could use the bridge location specified on the plan. This isn't surprising, but with the different Gibson scale lengths that are all considered 24.75", I didn't want to blindly follow the plans.

Body Holes Drilled

Fretting

The next step on the neck is to install the frets. The fretwire I purchased came in straight pieces, so it was necessary to pre-bend the frets. To ensure a good fit, the frets were pre-bent to a tighter radius than the fretboard. I found that this was easier to do before cutting the frets to length. Once cut to an over-size length, I trimmed the tang of the fret so the fret would overhang the binding.

Fret Ready to Be Installed

Before installing the frets, I cleaned any excess glue that was left in the fret slots during the binding process. I also added a slight bevel to the fret slots to ensure the frets would seat tightly against the fretboard.

I added a little glue to the fret slot and used a hammer with a hard plastic head to seat the ends of the frets. Once the ends were seated, I seated the rest of the fret with a clamp and radiused caul. When all of the frets were installed, I discovered that some of the frets were not seated as well as the others. I was able to reseat some of these, but 3 or 4 of them need to be replaced.

Frets Installed

This was my first time doing this, so I learned quite a bit. The biggest lesson learned was to have better neck support during the hammering or pressing process. The support I used had a narrow surface area, which caused the back of the neck to dent. Luckily, I was able to repair them by steaming them out.


More next time...

Headstock Inlay

After a lot of internal debate, I decided to do a mother of pearl inlay on the headstock. I had several ideas for logos, but they were either too complex or too cheesy. In the end, I decided on a monogram and a diamond inlay. Using the computer, I laid out the inlay design. Once complete, I printed the design and headed to the shop to start cutting the MOP. I purchased 2 pieces of MOP that were 1"x2", and I designed the two inlay components to just fit on the blanks. I attached an auxillary table to the scroll saw, in order to make the small piece easier to handle. I also taped the MOP between 2 pieces of cardboard, to help prevent it from breaking during the cut.

After finishing the cuts, I learned 2 lessons.

1. Don't use cardboard as a carrier board. The cardboard was entirely to pliable. This made it difficult to cut a square edge.

2. Use an extra-secure method of adhering the MOP to the carrier board.

During the cut, the MOP shifted, so instead of cutting a diamond, I cut a very odd looking not-parallel-o-gram. The edges were not straight and the points were not even. Instead of scrapping the $7 piece of MOP ($15 if you add shipping), I used a disc sander to restore the diamond shape. I was able to re-shape the MOP into a diamond, but it came out smaller than originally planned. Luckily, the "redesigned" size still looked proportional when dry-fitted to the headstock.

For the lettering, I switched to a coping saw and needle files. This is normally done with a jeweler's saw with very fine blades, but rather than placing another order, I decided to try a coping saw with a 20tpi blade. I figured that if I can get close with a saw, I can file the letter up to the line. This didn't work too badly. The letters aren't perfect, so I am going for the "hand-cut" look :-).

After cutting the inlays, I scribed their outlines on the headstock and trimmed the waste using a router and chisel. Due to the size of parts of the lettering, and my lack of chisels smaller than 1/4", there were some gaps, but I was fully expected them. To both secure the inlays and fill the gaps, I used epixy with a single drop of india ink to color it black. After letting it cur overnight, I scrapped the excess epoxy, and levelled the inlay. The black epoxy blended well with the ebony. Overall, the inlay came out ok. I should have taken more pictures, but my frustration level was too high to visually document the process.

Headstock Inlay

Gluing the Fretboard

Now that the headstock is complete, I can finally attach the fretboard to the neck. In order to align the fretboard, I was planning to use the method where you dry clamp the fretboard in place and drill holes through 2 fretslots to use as alignment pins during the glue-up. After dry clamping the fretboard in place a few times, and having very few problems getting it to line up, I decided to manually align it during the glue-up. To prevent glue from getting on the truss rod, I placed a strip of masking tape over the truss-rod channel and applied glue to the neck. I removed the tape and carefully spread the glue a litte closer to the channel. Using spring clamps at the headstock and heel, and a clamped radius block in the middled, I was able to attach the fretboard without having it slip out of position.

Fretboard Clamped to Neck

After the glue dried, I removed the clamps and scrapped the excess glue. A quick dry fit. showed that the center line of the fretboard lined up perfectly with the center line of the body. This was a big relief since it required the mortise, the neck, and the fretboard to be cut and attached accurately.

Fretboard Glued to Neck

Body Binding

Since the top was carved. it was time to attach the binding to the body. I did this using super glue gel and strips of reinforced packing tape. Before starting, I marked the binding near the cutaway, and cut the width of the rest of the binding a little oversized of the finishing dimension. The binding at the cutaway is taller, so I left it full width at that location. Traditionally, the binding is the same height around the entire perimeter. This requires the channel in the cutaway to be cut after the top is carved. This also leaves some of the maple top visible below the binding line. Due to the extra difficulty, and in my opinion, poor aesthetics, I went with the full height binding.

Starting opposite of the cutaway, I worked my way around the perimeter by applying glue over a 4" length, and taping the binding in place. Due to the stiffness of the binding, I used a heatgun to soften the binding while shaping it around the curves. Attaching the binding around the cutaway horn was very difficult and required a lot of heating and bending prior to applying the glue. I had to do this forming process in several small steps to prevent the binding from thinning and folding over at the sharp bend.

Binding Attached to Body

After the glue cured, I removed the tape and began to scrap the binding level to the top and sides. Scraping the top wasn't too bad, but the side took some time since I was removing nearly 1/32" of material. After the binding was leveled, I noticed that some parts of the joint line between the binding and the top had a noticeable dark joint line. I should be able to hide this during the finishing process, but it is a little frustrating. The 1/16" thickness on the top looks a bit thin as well, but it will be fine.

Binding Trimmed Flush

Binding Issue

After completing the binding and unclamping the neck, I decided to try another dry fit of the neck to the body. Once again, the fit of mortise and tenon was perfect, but I noticed that the fretboard was overhangin the binding at the cutaway. My first thought was that I could scrape the fretboard binding down to meet the body binding, but I could see a faint line of rosewood, so that wouldn't be enough. Then I realized that scraping the fretboard binding would destroy the straight edge line of the fretboard...duh! After a quick double check that the neck was set in the right place, I remembered the binding looking a little thin in that spot. The lesson learned was to not blend the binding where the cutaway meets the neck until after the neck is set in place.

Luckily, I am using ABS binding, which happens to dissolve in acetone, which I happen to have on hand. I poured a small amount of acetone in a container, and added shavings from the binding scraps I still had. After adding enough shavings, the mixture turned into a paste. I cut a peice of full height binding to length and pre-formed it to the shape of the repair area. I slathered the binding paste to the existing binding and stuck the new binding in place. The paste will partially dissolve the old binding and fuse the new binding in place. The fusing of the binding pieces should minimize visible joint lines after leveling the new binding to the old binding.

Binding Repair

After letting the paste dry, I carefully levelled the binding to the top of the neck plane and re-fitted the neck. The fretboard wasn't quite sitting flat, so I flattened the neck plane a little. This made the mortise a hair too shallow near the pick-up cavity, so I slightly shaved the end of the tenon down with a handplane. After a little tweaking, it had a pretty good fit. I will blend the rest of the repair area after the neck is glued in place.



Tune in for more later...

Headstock (con't)

Now that the headstock veneer is in place, I was able to trim it flush to the headstock. I used the router table for part of it, and trimmed the neck transition and top detail by hand. Once trimmed flush, I was able to layout the holes for the tuners. I started by drilling 3/32" holes at the tuner center points in the headstock template. Next, I applied masking tape to the ebony veneer and secured the template to the headstock. I transferred the locations by inserting the 3/32" bit into the template and giving it a few light taps to transfer to the ebony. I used the masking tape in order to clearly see the marks. Without it, the marks are very difficult to see.

After marking the location on the ebony, I transferred the marks to the back of the headstock by drilling 3/32" holes through the headstock. (Note: Due to the neck transition, I could not mark the back of the headstock directly with the template. Doing this would have required removing the bottom part of the template) With the marks on the back of the headstock, I was able to drill 13/32" holes for the tuners. Use of a backerboard and a slow feed rate prevented the ebony from tearing out as the bit cut through the headstock.

Headstock with Tuner Holes Drilled

Maple Top

A solid mahogany guitar body produces a dark sound, so in order to brighten the sound, a typical Les Paul will have a maple face glued to the top of the mahogany. For the top, I started with a piece of quilted maple that was 1.75" thick. The maple was surfaced to show the figure, but in no way was it ready to be resawn.

The first step was to create a flat reference surface using the jointer. After jointing one face, I headed to the planer to make the opposing face parallel. I was really looking forward to this step since I wanted to see how well the spiral headed planer handled the highly figured maple. Since my jointer has straight knives, there was quite a bit of tearout from face-jointing. A few passes through the planer cleared it up. The spiral head worked exactly as expected!

After edge-jointing and ripping the other edge parallel on the tablesaw, I set my tablesaw fence to resaw the maple blank in order to bookmatch the top. Since my bandsaw can only handle a 6" resaw. and the board was 7", I choose to do the resawing on the tablesaw. For this method, you set the fence to cut down the middle of the board and take multiple passes on each edge until you saw through the board, or in this case run out of blade height. I finished the rest of the cut with a handsaw.

Once again, I surfaced and edge-jointed the resawn boards, glued and clamp them, and left them to dry for a few hours.

Resawn and Bookmatched Top Glue Up

After the glue was dry, I removed any excess and ran the glued panel through the planer. This is where the spiral head really shines. Not only does the curly maple have ever changing grain direction, but book-matching makes the grain the opposite side to side. After a few passes through the planer, the panel came out smooth on both sides, with no tear-out.

Top Panel through Surface Planer

Next, I traced the body shape and a line 1/8" to the outside of the body shape onto the maple. Using the bandsaw, I rough cut the top to shape. Being careful to line up the center seam of the panel to the body center line, I glued the top to the body. As you can see in the picture, I used quite a few clamps in order to provide even pressure.

Top Cut to Rough Shape

Top Glued to Bottom

Although the glues dries to a workable state in a few hours, I didn't want to take any risks, so I kept the body clamped overnight. After removing the clamps, I set up a flush trim bit in the router table and trimmed the top flush with the body. I took it slow and used a sharp bit, so I didn't have any chip-out issues.

Top Trimmed Flush with Body

Routing the Binding Channel

In order to prevent the need for any new jigs or tools, I decided to route the binding channel prior to carving the top. The channel extends into the mahogany by about 1/16". After carving the top, the binding height will be 1/4". I believe the channel should be 3/32" wide, but to prevent buying a special router bit for 1 cut, I used a 3/8" bearing on my 1/2" flush trim bit to turn it into a 1/16" rabbeting bit. The binding will need to be trimmed flush to both the side and the top after it is glued on.

Body with Binding Channel Routed

Defining the Top

The first step in shaping the top is to define a "carve to" line around the perimeter of the body. This is the area that will have a concave shape (known as recurve). Using the contour sections from plan, as well as a flexible ruler to generate the curved shaped, I mapped out the beginning of the recurve line on a piece of MDF. After cutting and sanding the template, I attached it to the body with double-sided tape. Using a short pattern bit, I removed the maple from the recurve area.

Recurve Area Defined

Before any carving takes place, the neck and pickup planes were cut. To cut the neck, I used my tenoning jig on the tablesaw to hold the body at a 4.4deg angle. The plane starts at the top of the binding and ends in the middle of the neck pickup area. With the blade and jig set at 90deg to the table, I clamped the body in the jig. Next, I adjusted the jig so the body was 94.4deg to the table. After lining up the jig/body close to the cut line, I made the cut in a few passes by sneaking up on the cut line and height.

Neck Angle Cut on Tablesaw

Due to the height of the cut needed vs. the height of the blade, it was necessary to finish the cut using a handplane. This was very easy since I already had 3" reference surface.

Neck Angle Finished with Handplane

Before milling the pick-up plane, I cut the mortise for the neck. After lining up and clamping the neck in place, I used a knife to scribe around the tenon. Using the scribe lines as a guide, I temporarily adhered short pieces of plywood around the perimeter of the mortise to create a template. Since I was concerned about the plywood shifting slightly during the routing, I biased the plywood just over the scribe line. Using a pattern bit in the router, I routed the mortise to the depth of the tenon. Due to the lenght of the router bit, I had to remove the template halfway through the cut, but since the cut was deep enough by this point, I was able to use the top of the mortise as a reference for the bearing. After completing the cut, I did a test fit and the neck fit perfectly!

Neck Mortise Complete

Neck Test Fit

Starting to Look Like a Guitar!

The pick-up plane extends from the edge of the neck to a spot just in front of the bridge. This angle isn't really defined on the plans, but I found information about it on several Les Paul build forums and blogs. The angle is dependent on the neck angle and thickness of the top. Instead of calculating the angle, I marked a line across the width of the body just in front of the fretboard and just before the bridge. I taped a shim to the underside of the body to lift the neck end of the body so that the line at the fretboard was the same height as the line near the bridge. Using a disk sander on the drill press, I slid the body back and forth on the drill press table to define the plane. I did have to tweak the location of the shim several times to get the angle right, but the final angle was easy to sneak up on.

Pick-UP Plane Milling

The $10 I spent on the disk sander and 80 grit disks was definitly worth it. I've seen other sites where router rails were used for both the neck and pick-up plane, but this requires building a jig and getting it set to the correct angle. I don't like spending time making jigs, and I'm not a big fan of using a handheld router, so using the tenoning jig and drillpress were great alternatives for me.


Carving the Top

Now that the top was defined, I could begin carving the top. Using the contour lines, I mapped out the pick-up plane. On some Les Pauls, this is relatively flat, others have a slight curve. The contour lines on the plane show a slight curve, so I mapped out a section where the curve changes by 1/32" in height. I marked another curve line about 5/8" (on average) to the outside of the pick-up plane. I will use the 2nd line as a guide to start the carving. Once I'm comfortable with the shaping process, I will work my way up to the pick-up plane. Since I prefer the look of a curved top, I will add a curve to the pick-up plane after the pick-up cavities are routed.

To carve the top, I primarily used a flat-bottomed spokeshave. I started at the outside with a fairly steep angle and worked my way in and to a shallow angle/curve. Using this method, the curve generated itself. As I got closer to the recurve area, the spokeshave could no longer reach the edge, so I used a 1" wide chisel to pare away the wood near the recurve, and switched back to the spokeshave when I could. Due to the grain changes in the maple, the chisel would cut cleanly for an inch or so, and then come to a stop or want to tear out the grain. I kept a strop nearby and repeatedly honed the chisel during the process to keep a sharp edge. This helped, but in the end there's only so much you can do. The final shaping will be done with a sander, so its not really a big deal.

Top Rough Carve

After getting the convex portion pretty close, I began working on the recurve, which has a depth of about 1/32". For this process, I used a gooseneck scraper. I started in the center of the recurve and worked my way to the edges. I blended the recurve with the rest of the top curve, but didn't quite go to the outside edge that will recieve the binding. In order to keep a consistent height and allow material for blending the binding, this edge will be blended after the binding is in place. Even with the scraper, going across the grain in spots still produced some tear-out, which will be easily handled by a sander.

Top with Recurve

Overall, I'm happy with the top carve. It doesn't follow the defined contour exactly, but it doesn't really matter since it looks good. My original plan was to route steps for every 1/16" elevation and blend them together, but this would have required multiple templates. Doing it by hand was very enjoyable since it was quiet and dustfree. Overall, it probably took around 2 1/2 to 3 hours.

Later...

Fretboard (con't)

After the inlay cavities were cut, I was able to glue the inlays in place using Super Glue gel. My research has shown me that some people use Super Glue and some use tinted epoxy (fills the gaps with the squeezeout). I chose the Super Glue since the setup time is 15-30 seconds, and I didn't want to feel rushed to complete the glue-up before the epoxy cured.

Even though the SUper Glue develops full strength after 10 minutes, I waited a few hours before I started leveling the inlays. For the leveling, I started with a file to get the edges that protuded from the radius. As long as I was careful not to file the fretboard, I could get the inlay very close to flush with the file alone. Once I was done filing, I taped some 150grit sandpaper to a radiused sanding block that matches the 12" radius on the fretboard. I chose 150grit sandpaper because I was out of 100grit, and I was ready to sand, not run to the hardware store. Unfortunatly, the inlay at the 1st fret was set about 1/64" below the fretboard surface in the center, so I had to sand the entire board down to meet it.

The benefit of sanding the fretboard down is that I produced plenty of rosewood dust to mix with the epoxy I used for filling the gaps in the inlays. I tried this sawdust method before for filling knot holes, but since knots are generally darker, the match was always too light, so I always preferred using clear epoxy. Since the rosewood is dark, and the standard practice is to use sawdust, I thought I'd give it a try. Due to the temperature in the shop, I used a heatgun to help get the epoxy to flow into the gaps. After the epoxy hardened, I filed, scraped, and sanded the excess. Overall, I was very happy with the results.

Close-Up of Inlay

While the sides of the fretboard were still parallel, I cut the fretboard to final lenght. Since this was a pre-slotted board, the 1st fret end was already cut, but the other end contained 2 extra fret slots (the Les Paul is a 22 fret guitar, the fretboard was cut for 24). Using the tablesaw with a cross-cut sled, I cut the fretboard to length at the slot for the 23rd fret.

Tapering the fretboard began with aligning the center of the fretboard with the center of the neck. I used the edges of the truss rod cavity as reference points, since it was centered when originally cut. After making alignment marks, I clamped the fretboard to the neck and marked the width at the nut and at the beginning of the neck joint. Using a straightedge and marking knife, I connected these marks and extended them to the end of the fretboard. My layout matches the plan, which specifies the width at each end of the fretboard. In order to account for the binding, I scribed another line 1/32" in-board, which will be the actual cut line for the taper. To cut the taper on each side, I taped straight piece of 1/2" plywood right on the scribe line, cut the excess on the bandsaw, and trimmed it flush with a pattern bit on the router.

Using Super Glue gel and reinforced packing tape, and attached the binding on each side of the fretboard. After the sides were complete, I cut and fit the binding for the end of the fretboard and installed it as well.

Binding Taped to Fretboard

After a few hours, I removed the tape and trimmed the binding flush with a block plane and scraper.

Tapered and Bound Fretboard

Next, I marked the locations for the side marker dots and headed over the drillpress. Using a 3/32" bit, I drilled 1/4" deep for each marker. The depth wasn't specified, so 1/4" seemed like a good number. In order for the side dots to look round, it was necessary to drill the holes perpendicular to the fretboard side. Due to the taper, I had to shim and clamp the fretboard into the proper position. I used the back of my drill press fence as a carriage for the fretboard. I repositioned the clamped assembly for each hole. The drill cuts through the binding very easily, so I had no issues following my lightly center-punched hole locations.

Drilling the Side Marker Holes

With a few drops of regular Super Glue in the hole, I installed each side dot and cut the excess with a small side-cutter. I quickly trimmed the dots flush with a light touch on the block plane and scraper. I didn't worry about getting it perfect, since the binding flushness will be tweaked after gluing the fretboard to the neck.


Headstock Veneer

After completing the fretboard, I set it aside and started to veneer the headstock. I marked and very roughly cut the ebony veneer to an oversized shape. After marking some reference points, I used a scroll saw to cut an access hole for the truss-rod. At this point, I realized that I would need to install the truss-rod prior to the gluing the headstock veneer. With a few dabs of silicone (as specified by Stew Mac), I installed the truss-rod and set the neck aside. After the silicone had set up, I was able to glue the headstock veneer to the headstock. 3 Bessey's and 2 F-clamps were probably overkill, but since the veneer was only 3/32", I wanted to ensure an even bond. Besides, why buy the clamps if you don't use them? :)

Gluing Headstock Veneer

Control Cavity Covers

I decided to work on the control and switch cavity covers next. Instead of purchasing covers, I planed a peice of walnut down to 0.110". Since my planer can't cut thinner than 1/4", I taped the board to 1/2" MDF to act as a sled. Next, I attached the templates, rough cut, and trimmed the peices flush to the template. While the template was still attached, I drilled 1/16" holes through the covers. This hole will be enlarged and counter-sunk after I use it to mark the screw locations on the body.

The next step is to cut the lip around the cavities so the covers sit flush to the back of the body. After attaching the template and setting the router to the proper depth, I routed the cavity lips.
During the finishing process, the walnut will be dyed black in order to simulate ebony.

Control and Switch Covers

Coming Up...

I finally received the curly maple for the top of the body, so my next steps will be bookmatching, edge-joining, and attaching the maple top. I've been looking forward to this step, so I can see how well the spiral head in my planer can handle highly figured maple.

To finish up for the post, here's some eye candy (at least for a woodworker)...

Curly Maple Billet for Top