Les Paul Build - Part 5

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...