Les Paul Build - Part 6

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...