Les Paul Build - Part 9

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...