Les Paul Build - Part 7

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...